While You Were Out
by WRTRD
Summary: At the end of Season 2, Castle decided to stop working with Beckett, and misery follows. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She steps off the elevator into the empty bullpen and immediately senses that something is wrong. For the last two months she's been coming in so early that sometimes the night shift is still working, and not once has Captain Montgomery arrived ahead of her. Until today. There he is, poking his head out of his office door and looking her way.

"Detective Beckett? May I have a word, please?"

What has she done? He doesn't seem mad, but he does appear deeply serious. He keeps his eyes on her as she drops her bag on her desk, brushes nonexistent crumbs from her jacket and pants, and walks towards his office.

"Good morning, sir. You're here, um." She's jittery, and can't finish her sentence, or her thought.

"Early?"

"Right."

"Not as early as you."

What is he talking about? He's already halfway through a cup of coffee and she just got here. "Sorry, Captain, what?"

"Sit down, please, Kate."

Oh, God, he called her Kate. This is not good. She perches anxiously on the edge of the chair opposite him. She doesn't remember it being this hard, but it's poking into her and she can't get comfortable.

"I understand that you've been coming in before dawn lately, for weeks and weeks, in fact." He's very still, and when she doesn't comment he asks, "Do you know what time the sun came up today?"

"No. No, I don't."

"That's because it hasn't. Today is July twenty-ninth and dawn in New York City this morning is at five nineteen. Which is"—he breaks off to check his watch—"twenty minutes from now."

"Oh."

"Why are you here, Kate?"

She feels her chest tightening, which is better than a noose, but not much. Her hands unconsciously go to her throat. The only relief she feels is that there's no rope around it. "Why am I here? There's a lot to do. I have, well, a lot to do."

His eyebrows, which were already raised, go even higher, and he works his jaw a little. "Really? You haven't had a new case in almost a week, and you wrapped that one up in less than a day." He points at a neat stack of folders. "And you're more than caught up on your paperwork. From what I can see, you've even done some of Esposito and Ryan's."

"Just doing them a favor. It's summer. They like to, you know, go to the beach. Whatever." How the hell does he know what her hours have been, anyway? Why does he care? And what nosy son of a bitch ratted her out? She doesn't know where this conversation is headed, but she doesn't like it. It takes almost more strength than she has, but she tries to lighten things up. "I'm pretty familiar with the criminal code, sir, and I don't think that coming to work early is even a class D misdemeanor."

"Kate." His expression morphs into an unsettling combination of severity and tenderness. "I'm a father, you know, and my BFF detector is really, really good."

Best Friend Forever detector? Huh? "BFF?"

"Big Fat Fib. I wouldn't believe that story from any of my kids, and I'm not buying it from you, either."

She could tell him the truth, but she won't. It's been two months since she's seen Castle. Two months since he told her quietly that he "understood her decision" not to come to the Hamptons for the weekend. Two months since he shook her hand, told her it had been "fun, an honor, sometimes terrifying," to have worked with her but that he had enough material for a lot of Nikki Heat books and should "get my ass out of this NYPD-issue chair and into my ergonomically correct one at home, and write." What would Montgomery think of her if she confessed that she misses Castle so much that she can hardly function? That because he's not shadowing her anymore her life is unspooling like some dingy, frayed thread? She can't bear to say anything, so she says nothing, but she's aware of him faintly clearing his throat, shifting slightly behind his desk.

"I'm surprised that you haven't cut your hand," he says.

Now she's completely lost. "Excuse me?"

"I'm surprised that you haven't cut your hand on your cheekbones. That's how thin you've gotten. I'm worried about you." He picks up a sheet of paper and passes it to her. It flutters a little in front of his desk fan, and she feels fluttery, too. "Take a look at that and tell me what it says."

Shit. It's from HR. "It, uh, it looks like my vacation time?"

"Correct. You have twenty-nine days in the bank. That's almost six weeks."

"Meaning no disrespect, Captain, but I don't need to take a vacation."

"Oh, but you do. It's that or mandatory sick leave, which I doubt that you want on your record."

Now she's bristling. "I'm not sick. I'm perfectly healthy. And I'm not required to take vacation."

"Meaning no disrespect," he echoes, his tone suddenly steely, "but I disagree. Your missed a couple of details on the Higdon homicide. Not big ones, but the kind that that Armani-suited, thousand-bucks-an-hour lawyer would attack like a hawk on a rat, might even be able to use to get his skeevy client's case thrown out."

"But—"

Montgomery puts his palm up. "Stop right there. Your team caught them before any harm was done. But what about the next time?" He sighs and rubs a hand over his eyes. "Look. It's no secret that you're the best detective I've ever worked with, but you're exhausted, and exhaustion also slows your reflexes. What happens if someone draws down on you, Kate? What happens if you're in your squad car, lights and sirens, and you don't see a kid who darts into the crosswalk? Hmm? What then?" He lowers his voice and softens his tone again. "You may not believe me, but I'm pretty sure I know what's bothering you. You don't have to tell me, but you do have to take some time off, starting now. Three weeks vacation, minimum."

Three weeks? What the hell will she do for three weeks except sink deeper into the trench she dug around herself? The trench she continues to dig with a shovel of her own making, and the muddy water rising.

"Go home, go to the shore, go to Paris, go anywhere but this precinct. And if you don't start eating, I'll send Meals on Wheels to your apartment." He reaches behind him and retrieves a small wax-paper bag, which he pushes across his desk until it bumps up against her knuckles. It's only when she feels the paper against them that she realizes that her hand is balled up in a fist. "Here's a blueberry muffin to get you started. Now, vamoose."

She's indignant. More than that, she's furious, but too tired to unleash her anger on anything. She grabs the bag, storms to her desk to retrieve her purse, and takes the stairs to the street. The fewer people she sees, the better. The one person she won't see in the elevator—or on the stairs or walking through the door that he's walked through hundreds of times—is the one person she wants to see. Castle. But he's lost to her now. If she's lucky, she'll see him at a Nikki Heat book launch. If she's unlucky, she'll see him at a Nikki Heat book launch. The thought of it makes her heart crack open. She's actually gasping for air, and leans against the concrete wall of an office building opposite the subway station until she can breathe steadily again. The sun has just come up, and she's going nowhere but down.

That was eight days ago. She's spent most of her waking time since—and since she's hardly sleeping, that's most of the time, period—thinking about Castle. He hasn't called or texted or emailed, but why would he? He'd called it quits. Very nicely, but still quits. He's in his house in the Hamptons. He'd shown her a few photos: it's a castle, really, a castle on the sand. A sandcastle for Castle. And Gina. Gina went with him. They're probably skinny dipping in the pool at night. In the day, they're rubbing suntan lotion on each other's backs. What does Castle's back feel like? It must be smooth. Definitely smooth. She's felt his cheek once or twice—twice, as if she didn't know exactly—and it's baby soft. When they danced together last year undercover, she couldn't believe his skin. She can still conjure up how it was against hers. Silk-satin-velvet, cool but warm.

She remembers a case last Hallowe'en when he'd said, "You smell like cherries." He smells like verbena and lime. She couldn't quite place the scent, until she spent an hour in a high-end shaving store and tested everything they had until she found it. She'll go to the grave without revealing that she bought a bottle, insanely expensive, and hid it in the back of a bathroom cabinet. This summer, though, this summer she's opened it many times, and even sprinkled a bit on her pillow, blushing as she did. She did it anyway, especially recently. Every night for the last four nights.

Castle is out of her life, but Lanie isn't. She's called several times this week, and Kate has let everything go to voicemail. Her loving but prying friend wants to have a girls' night out. Wants to go to a movie. Wants to go shoe shopping. Wants to know what the hell's going on. That's just it. Nothing is going on. With each dreary rotation of the earth, less is going on. The only thing that she can still do, that can fully occupy her, is work, and now she has none. The Captain won't let her come back for at least another thirteen days. Maybe more. He'd hinted at more yesterday when he Facetimed her.

"You look like hell, Beckett," he'd said. "I bet you still haven't finished that blueberry muffin I gave you."

"Not true." Not entirely true. The muffin has undoubtedly been finished, just not by her. She'd tossed it in the trash can on the subway platform where a greedy rat family must have dined on it.

She doesn't want to think about the rest of the conversation, so she doesn't. Instead she thinks about Castle. How did she fuck things up so badly? What if she really never sees him again? He'd bulldozed his way into her life and now he's not there. He'd gone so gently, and that had made it so much worse. What the hell is she supposed to do? Without her realizing it, he'd somehow taken over all her senses, and now she can't make sense of anything.

Maybe she should write down her thoughts, try to straighten things out. She sits heavily in her desk chair and opens up the drawer to look for paper. There isn't any. How can she have no paper? What kind of person has no paper in her house? She pushes her hand to the very back of the drawer and her fingers land on something. She pulls it out: a small pink pad on which people left messages in the pre-email era. A WHILE YOU WERE OUT note pad. She'd loved them when she was kid, used to ask her mom to bring some home from the office. She'd write silly notes to her on them. "While you were out a dinosaur came over." "While you were out I found a million billion dollars under my bed."

She gets a pencil and stares at the blank piece of paper. In the "For" line she writes "Rick Castle." She marks the URGENT box with a black X, and fills in the date and time. After considerable thought she writes that Kate Beckett had telephoned. There are five other boxes, and she checks off PLEASE CALL and WANTS TO SEE YOU. Then the tough part: the message. What's the message? She sharpens the pencil. Sharpens all the pencils in the mug from the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, which she'd gone to with her parents. The message. Oh, hell, just write it down. It's the truth. A true message.

I LOVE YOU.

Coffee. He always brought her coffee. She'll have some coffee. She makes her way into the kitchen and finds a pot already there. Had she made it? When did she make it? In the morning? It's night now, isn't it? She hasn't opened the blinds since the beginning of her enforced vacation, so she has to pull them aside to check the sky. Yes, it's night. Ten, it's ten o'clock. She'd meant to watch the Yankee game, but didn't. This coffee tastes weird. Coffee never tastes weird. It's weird. And she's sweating. Isn't the AC on? She turns and sees the edge of a curtain moving, so it must be. Why is she sweating? She doesn't feel right. Is it the coffee? It can't be the coffee. Coffee is her lifeline, so why does she feel like she's dying? Her chest hurts. Jesus, her chest hurts. The mug slips from her hand and falls onto the floor. She grabs the edge of the counter, but she can't hold on.

TBC

 **A/N** I have not abandoned "Well, That's a First," but real life has been fraught lately and I hit a bump in the road with that story. I decided to try a new one, which I hope will ultimately jar me loose on "First."


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Doughnuts. His mornings revolve around doughnuts. Interesting, because doughnuts are round. They don't exactly revolve, but they're round. With his first cup of coffee, half an hour ago, he'd had a honey-dipped; with his second cup, a chocolate. He's considering a powdered-sugar one for his next caffeine infusion, any minute. The only doughnuts he won't permit in his personal orbit are the sprinkle-dusted, because they remind him of that smug Feeb Sorenson. Better to be reminded of him than of Demming, but still. Beckett's Demming.

Hey, there are plenty of other doughnuts in the sea. By the sea. He's by the sea, with his doughnuts. Other than that, he's alone. Doughnuts are his faithful companions, at least until lunch, when other things swim into his culinary awareness. He refills his mug, picks up a strawberry-frosted doughnut—he'd changed his mind about the powdered-sugar—strolls to the terrace, and stretches out on a lounge chair. It's a gloomy day, gray and humid and airless. Good. It's appropriate for his mood. He doesn't want sunshine, and he doesn't need stormy; he's been feeling stormy all month at the house that usually makes him happy. But now he's slid down the mud-slicked slope into glum. Morose. Depressed. Despondent. He can't write. He may be a writer, but he's run out of words. And he may not be a shrink, but he knows exactly why he's focussed on doughnuts: they're cop food. Beckett rarely eats them, but they're cop food, and he misses cops. Especially one cop. Badge 41319. It's easier to think of her that way, not by name.

He's grateful that he's alone in his misery, with no one to tell him to cheer up, to count his blessings. He knows about his blessings, acknowledges them, but he's not cheering the fuck up. Alexis is at the Princeton summer program and his mother is in Maine. Gina is long gone. Long, long gone. Seven and a half weeks gone. What had he been thinking when he'd asked her to come to the Hamptons? He'd just been so stung by seeing Beckett with Demming that he'd turned to the first warm female body. God knows Gina wasn't, isn't, warm: she'd just been available. It hadn't been his finest hour. Days. Not his finest three days. He'd driven her back to the city after their final, shattering argument. Gina wouldn't have deigned to go on the jitney or the Long Island Railroad; his Mercedes had been an acceptable offer.

"Twenty-six," she'd said that last morning. Spat, actually. She'd been literally spitting mad, and spittle had done nothing for her carefully lacquered, perfectly accessorized veneer.

"Twenty-six what?" he'd asked. He'd been mad, too.

"You've mentioned Kate Beckett twenty-six times so far today, and it's not even noon."

"Are you kidding me? You're _counting_?"

"You're damn right I'm counting, you son of a bitch. I only wish that I'd started yesterday. Must have been a hundred times."

"Yeah, well, I'm not apologizing for mentioning the person who inspired the best-selling book in your entire catalogue."

The conversation had ended soon after, but not before getting even nastier. He'd waited for her to pack, and driven her home in heated silence. She'd bolted at the curb, and her doorman had retrieved the suitcases from the trunk, so he hadn't even had to get out of the car. From there he'd torn back to the loft, parked angrily in the garage, gone upstairs, and drunk himself into a stupor. The following afternoon, with hammers clanging on anvils in his head, he'd gone back to the island.

He took a break after that, the entire month of June. A break from writing and, in retrospect, rational thought. There were parties everywhere, and he went to all of them. He hit every bar and every beach within 50 miles. He bought countless drinks for countless women—countless because, unlike Gina, he didn't keep count—and occasionally ended up in bed with one. But not at home, never at home. There were some four-star inns in the area, and that's where he went. All the women were gorgeous and none was memorable.

When he woke up the morning after the Fourth of July, unsure of the name of the lissome creature next to him, he faced the unpleasant truth that the independent life he'd been living had no appeal and no merit. After a shower (alone) and a pleasant if meaningless goodbye to Summer (of course her name was Summer), he went home. And that's where he's been ever since. For the last month, he's gone no farther than the edge of his lawn. He has his groceries delivered; the housekeeper comes two mornings a week; the pool man, every Friday. That's it.

He'd told Beckett that he had enough material for a dozen more books. It was technically true, but not emotionally. He has hundreds of notes on procedures and pathology, on the bureaucracy of the police department and the courts, on the camaraderie and the black humor and the compassion of the people at the Twelfth. He knows how to skate around the law and how to conform to it. He has ideas for scores of murders. It's not enough. It's not enough because he hasn't had, can never have, enough of Beckett. Not enough of her subtlety and her wit and everything that she keeps hidden under the most beautiful exterior he'd ever seen. He's called off their partnership, but the more he tries to purge her from his system, the deeper in she burrows. He can't write, and he doesn't know what to do.

So he eats.

At lunch every day he has thick sandwiches on an array of breads from the local bakery. Lakes of peanut butter and jelly and hillocks of chicken salad. Grilled cheese with double coatings of butter. Potato chips, corn chips, pita chips. In the afternoon he snacks on almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, cookies from the bakery and box after box from Pepperidge Farm and Nabisco. For dinner he grills steaks and vegetables, or steams clams and lobster. He makes panfuls of home fries, and warms up fruit pies.

Before bed every night he brushes his teeth, avoids the scale, and tries not to think about Beckett. He does not succeed. Tonight he makes the mistake of looking in the mirror, and notices the doughnut-like roll of flesh that's developing above the waistband of his boxers. He grimaces, shrugs his shoulders, and turns out the light. When he sets his phone on his nightstand he's startled by the date. He's been paying no attention to time, and somehow it's already August 6th? He sighs, throws his arm over his eyes, and tries to will himself into a dreamless sleep, or any kind of sleep.

A hundred miles west of his bed, Kate Beckett is lying on her kitchen floor. She'd managed to pull her phone from her pocket, press 911 and gasp out her address to the operator, who'd promised that help was on the way. She wonders if this pain is endurable, wonders, as she stares at the screen of her phone, if her last conscious thought will be that it's 10:05 p.m. on August 6th. She wills herself, as her chest feels as if it's being crushed by a truck, not to think of that, but of Castle. Her last conscious thought will be of Castle and his eyes and his smile and his scent of lime and verbena—there's a noise at the door. The EMTs. They're here, and she's still here. On Earth. At least for now.

She's trying to concentrate and to remember, but it's hard. They're asking her questions, they're putting her on a gurney, loading her into an ambulance. The ride is bumpy. It hurts. Lights and sirens. Usually she's the one ordering the lights and sirens, but these are on because of her, for her. They're in the hospital now, this is a hospital and the lights are too bright. Does she have family? They want to know if she has family. Her Dad is in Colorado on a case. Don't call him. They can't call him. Call Castle. No, don't call Castle. Can't call Castle. Lanie. Lanie is her friend. Lanie is a doctor. She tells them Lanie's name. Her number is on the phone. They're doing tests, strapping things to her, machines. She just wants to think of Castle.

She doesn't know what time it is, how much time has passed, but she's fully awake–aware–now, in a room, a doctor standing next to her. It's not a heart attack. It's not. The doctor is telling her that. So what is it? It felt like a heart attack, or what she's always thought a heart attack might be like. She's too young to have a heart attack, isn't she? Even though people her age do have them.

"Kate!" It's Lanie, who has run through the door in very high heels and a spangled neon-green dress that could get her arrested in some counties. "What the hell?"

"'m okay, Lane. Not a heart attack."

"Not a heart attack. God, Kate." Lanie turns to the doctor. "I'm sorry"–her eyes move to his badge as she extends her hand–"Doctor Field. I'm Lanie Parish, Doctor Parish."

Dr. Field is trying to cover his surprise as he returns her handshake. "Doctor Parish. Are you Ms. Beckett's physician?"

"I'm a pathologist. City medical examiner. She's my friend. We work together."

He looks even more surprised as he turns back to his patient. "I'm sorry, is it Doctor Beckett?"

"No. Detective. Homicide."

"Ah." Another surprised look.

"Kate." Lanie has grabbed her hand. "Is it all right if I'm in the room while Doctor Field talks to you?"

"Yes." She glances at the cardiologist. "You can both say anything to me, just don't talk about me outside." She knows it's a useless request, or demand.

And so the interrogation begins. He's asking, she's asking, they're asking, so many personal, probing questions. Over and over. She'll give them "emotional stress" and "constant anxiety," but that's it. Those are two of the choices, and they're true, and it's enough for the diagnosis. She tells them she's still pursuing her mother's case, on her own, and that must have put extra stress on her. She will not mention Castle. She will not, even though Lanie is doing that thing with her eyes and lips that mean "you're holding out on me."

What she has is something that mimics a heart attack, but isn't. It's takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or stress cardiomyopathy, a sudden but fortunately short-lived weakening of the muscular portion of the heart that does no permanent damage. Brought on by stress, as the name implies. She'll make a complete recovery, Dr. Field says. She's heard of it and always dismissed it, this thing people call broken-heart syndrome. To her it's always sounded like something out of a cheesy romance novel, or on a tear-jerking holiday TV special. But now, loath as she is to revising her opinion, she has to. Her heart is broken. Emotionally broken. No. No. Get over yourself, she thinks. Get over Castle. You're supposed to tough. You're supposed to be kick-ass. Stop acting like a wimp.

Pushing the sheet away, she tries to move her legs to the side of the bed so that she can stand up.

"Whoa, Ms. Beckett. Detective," Dr. Field says. "What are you doing?"

"Going home."

"Out of the question."

"You just said that this is 'short-lived.' I feel fine."

"You're not fine, Kate." Lanie is as stern as she's ever heard.

"Okay, I'm not fine. But I will be. That's what _you_ said, Doctor Field."

"We need to keep you overnight, at the very least. But we also need to discuss something else."

She tries not to panic. What something else? What? She'll just ask. "What?"

"Your weight."

"My weight? My weight is fine."

"You weigh a hundred and eleven pounds and you're close to five feet ten inches tall."

This feels intrusive. Over the line. "How do you know what I weigh?" she asks angrily. "You haven't weighed me."

"Actually, we have," he responds evenly. "Your bed is on a scale, which deducts the weight of everything but you. Not only are you seriously underweight, but you're anemic and your vitamin D levels are very low."

"I'm really strong."

"I'm sure you are. But keep doing what you've been doing and you won't be. I don't mean to sound like an alarmist, Detective Beckett, but it's clear that whatever it is that you've been eating—and medical experience tells me that it hasn't been much—lacks anything like the nutrients that you require."

"Fine. I'll start eating more. Better." She's 30 years old and he's treating her like a surly prepubescent.

"I'm glad to have that assurance. Nonetheless, I'm going to keep you here tonight and tomorrow night, and give you instructions to follow up with your own doctor immediately. This IV"—he taps the line that runs from a bag on a pole to her arm–"will help you immensely in the short term. While you're here. Now, you need sleep. I'll stop by in the morning."

She mumbles her thanks and exchanges glares with Lanie who, unlike Dr. Field, has not left. "Night, Lane. Thanks for coming over."

"Not so fast, honey. I'm staying."

"What? You can't sleep here. Go home, please. I'll see you tomorrow."

Lanie folds her arms tightly across her chest and waits a full two minutes before responding. "On one condition. You eat the breakfast I bring you, and change into the clothes I'm gonna get from your apartment. And some makeup. You're paler than most of the bodies I ever see on a slab. And one more thing? Our conversation is not over."

Does she have to agree to all this? She does think it would be nice to have something clean to wear, so she nods without actually signing off on anything. "Thanks. See you in the morning." And just like that, she's out.

Lanie is so hyper about Kate's condition that she can't possibly sleep, and decides to stop at her friend's apartment on the way to her own. She'll pick up the things she needs and then in the morning go straight to the hospital. She and Kate exchanged keys a couple of years ago, just in case. She's only used it twice, once when Kate had the flu and once when she'd had too much to drink. It had never occurred to her that she'd need it for something like this.

The cab driver waits until she's safely inside the lobby, and she steps inside the small, rickety elevator. "If I weren't wearing these damn shoes I'd have taken the stairs," she mutters. When she enters the apartment and turns on the light she sees at least half a dozen mugs on the counter and in the sink–one of them with a broken handle, which must have happened when Kate fell–and nothing else. "I bet you've been living on coffee," she says. "Lord, almighty." The living room is tidy, almost as though no one has been there in weeks, even months. Everything is precise and pretty and orderly. And then she gets to the bedroom. The bed is unmade, the covers a tangle. The floor is littered with tee shirts, shorts, and a pair of yoga pants. The wastebasket is filled with tissues. Kate had left her desk lamp on, so Lanie steps over to turn it off. That's when she sees it, the only thing there besides her laptop and a mug of pencils: a pink WHILE YOU WERE OUT pad. A blush-pink piece of paper bearing evidence thats as incriminating as anything she's observed at a crime scene: Kate Beckett's confession of love for Rick Castle, signed and dated just hours ago.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you so much for the wonderful reception! I'm very glad to be back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Lanie Parish is an impetuous person. She buys clothes on impulse. Chooses a team in the office football pool because the quarterback has a cute ass. Tries any dish that begins with L or P. Says exactly what she thinks. In every area of her life she acts precipitously, except one: her work. Medicine is serious business. Medicine requires forethought, determination, inquisitiveness, judgment, imagination–but never rashness.

She sits down on Kate's chair and examines the 4-by-5-inch While You Were Out slip as if it were the most important piece of forensic evidence that she's ever seen. It may be. She leaves it in place, doesn't even touch it, but reads and rereads it. Her immediate reaction is to grab the pad, rush back to the hospital and sit by her friend's bed until she wakes up, at which time she will grill her like a steak. Gently, of course, since the woman is a wreck. She knew that Kate hadn't told the whole story to her and Dr. Field. Working her mother's case? That's hardly a new stressor. She's been doing that for ages. She'd stopped for a while, but she'd begun again after Castle found new evidence a year ago.

Clearly Kate has withdrawn from everything, including food, friends, and the entire outside world. Lanie would bet a paycheck that she hasn't left her apartment since she began her so-called vacation–a vacation that she'd never mentioned to anyone, certainly not to the boys or to her. She tries to recall the last time that Kate had taken any time off, other than a day here and there, and she can't. A couple of years, at least, and probably more. Huh. Is it possible that this isn't a real vacation? Not even a staycation, but an unwanted one? Montgomery might have made her: it's in his power. He sees her every day, and he's as good an observer as anyone Lanie has known. He might have realized just how precipitous her downward spiral was. Is.

And what kind of friend is she, that she hadn't stepped in? Why hadn't she forced Kate's hand when she dodged questions, especially over the last several days? Kate hadn't returned a single call, text, or email. She should have come over here and pounded on the freaking door until Kate had opened it. And if she hadn't opened it, used the key. Oh, she knows that Kate has a thing for Castle, a big thing, and vise versa. A corpse could have risen up from the heat those two generated just standing side by side asking questions over a body that had met a violent end. What she'd failed to realize was just how deep in her tight-lipped friend is.

The last thing that she's going to do is confront her, but she has to do something. If she presses the stubbornest woman alive–who if she keeps going like this won't be alive much longer–she'll admit to nothing and retreat even farther. No, doing something means one thing: getting in touch with Castle. Kate has broken-heart syndrome, and he's the one responsible. Yes, he'd done it unintentionally and unknowingy, but he's the only one who can get to her, so Lanie has to get to him. She puts her head in her hands for a moment, then pushes herself up from the desk and chooses a few pieces of clothing, a hairbrush, and some makeup, and puts them in a small bag for Kate. By the time she's back on the street and hailing a cab, it's almost time for her to return to the hospital.

She'd become a power napper in med school, and she can still do it. Half an hour of sleep, and she's reasonably refreshed. She'd called Perlmutter last night–the guy's a mensch, even if he pretends he's not–and asked him to take her shift today, and thank God he'd agreed. She'd intended to spend the day with Kate, but the little pink note has changed everything. She'll visit her, but that's not the only thing on her agenda. The nap, a shower, and coffee have reinvigorated her physically and mentally, and she has a plan.

On the way to the hospital, she texts Castle. It's early, so he's probably asleep–asleep with that witch Gina, since it's Saturday, and she must be out in the Hamptons with him. He'll read this when he wakes up, and if she hasn't heard from him by 10:00, she'll call him.

"Sorry to disturb you on a weekend, Castle, since you and Gina must have plans, but please text me when you get this. It's not life-or-death, but it's urgent. It's about Kate. Thanks. L."

That should do it, shouldn't it? Enough to alarm him without scaring the bejeezus out of him. As she approaches the hospital lobby, she briefly considers stopping at Starbucks for something gooey to tempt Kate with, but no. She's on an IV. The really good stuff should wait.

"Hi," she says when she gets to Kate's door, relieved to see that the patient look marginally better than she had in the middle of the night.

"I want to go home."

"Well, good morning to you, too, Little Miss Sunshine. You do know you got me in the middle of a really good date, don't you? Lucky for you my clothes and my phone were still on."

Kate plucks at the edge of the sheet, and looks down. "Sorry."

"No need to apologize, honey." As she moves the chair next to the bed, Kate turns her head away. "Hey. Hey, look at me, okay?"

It takes a while for her to answer, and Lanie has to ask her to repeat what she said.

"I said, I'm embarrassed."

"Embarrassed? What the hell for?"

"You know what for." She's still not making eye contact.

"No, I don't. So why don't you fill me in. Medical training doesn't include mind reading. Except maybe for psychiatrists."

"I'm embarrassed that I had them call you."

"Who, the ER?"

"Yeah."

"I'm glad they did. You shouldn't have been here alone. How could that possibly be embarrassing, huh? You're my best friend."

"It was stupid. I'm not really sick."

That's a cue to make physical contact, and Lanie takes her hand. "Listen. Listen to me, Kate. You are sick. Stress cardiomyopathy is a real thing, not some made-up hooey. It's very treatable, quickly treatable, but I'm siding with Doctor Field. It's not just that. You are way, way, too skinny, girl, and you have to"–. Shit. It's her phone. She lets it go to voicemail. "You have to start eating, and I don't mean fast-food Chinese or half a cookie. I mean protein, green vegetables, fruit. Are you"–. The phone again.

"Answer it, Lane."

"You're avoiding me."

"Answer it."

She looks at the screen. Castle. She hits accept just before the call ends. "Hi, Mamma. What's up?"

"Mamma?"

"Yeah, I bet you're calling about Daddy's birthday. Look, I'm visiting someone in the hospital and"–

"The hospital? Is Beckett in the hospital?"

"Nothing serious, no. Uh huh. I'll call you back in" –. Kate is gesturing wildly. "Hold on, Mamma." She puts the phone face down on her lap.

"Talk to your mother, Lanie, please."

"Fine. I'll go out in the hall. It'll just take a minute or two. Maybe three, knowing my mother. And if you try to get out of the bed while I'm gone I'll kick your skinny butt to the Bronx."

She picks the phone up again. "Mamma?" she chirps. "I'm going to call you right back, okay? Just going out into the hallway."

But the hallway is not where she goes, because there is no way she'll risk anyone hearing what she she's going to say to him. She ducks into a small doctors' lounge, correctly figuring that it will be empty at this time of morning because there's just been a shift change. She presses Castle's number and he answers on the first ring.

"Lanie? What the hell?"

"Didn't want Kate to know that you were calling."

"Yeah, yeah, got that. What happened?"

She can hear that he's on the sharp edge of full-blown panic. "Calm down, Castle. She's all right. Or she will be. I didn't expect to hear from you so soon, though. It's only eight."

"I was just about to eat my first breakfast when I read your text. Lost my appetite."

"Your first breakfast? What's that?"

There's a cough on his end. "Um. I. I sort of eat two breakfasts. Or three. Sort of eat all day."

Hmm. That doesn't sound like a man who is happily living with his X-ray of an ex-wife/publisher. She might as well ask flat-out, as she usually does. "Really? I can't see Gina grazing all day. Always figured her for a black-coffee-for-breakfast, lettuce-leaf-for-lunch, skinless-roast-chicken-breast-for-dinner type."

Another cough, followed by silence, followed by shuffling, followed by another cough. "She's not here."

"She's not? Why not? Beautiful summer weekend like this."

"Because. Well, she hasn't been here since June first."

"It's August."

"I know. We broke up the morning after Memorial Day. I'm out here by myself."

"Sounds like you're eating for two, Castle."

"I guess. Just–what's going on with Beckett?"

"She collapsed late last night at home, but managed to call 911. She was having trouble breathing, and stabbing pain in her chest. EMTs thought it was a heart atta"–

He's screaming now, so loud that she has to pull the phone away from her ear. "A heart attack? She had a heart attack? Jesus, Lanie! She can't–. Where was Demming? Why the fuck didn't he get her to the ER?"

"Ssh, ssh, Castle. First of all, it wasn't a heart attack. Second, she was alone because she broke up with Demming."

"What? When?"

"The morning you left the precinct."

"Oh, God. Oh, God. Shit."

There's a crash, something shattering. "Castle? What was that? Are you all right?"

"Fine, I'm fine. I just threw my mug across the room. Broke the window. Hang on. Gotta catch my breath." A few seconds later he's talking again. "What's wrong with her?"

"It's stress." She won't violate patient confidentiality by giving him the exact diagnosis, but she can outline it, paint a few broad strokes. "Plus she's very thin."

"I know."

"Not thin like this thin. Look, I really want to talk to you about this, as much as I can. Would you be willing to come into the city?"

"Right now, I'll leave right now. What hospital is she in? What room? Does she have a private room? I can get her a private room."

Oh, he sounds almost as bad off as Beckett, and for the same reason. "She's probably going to be released tomorrow morning. She really doesn't want to see anyone, at least for now. Can you meet me for lunch?"

They settle on a diner, at noon, and she tries to settle his nerves a little before she ends the call and returns to Kate's room. "Sorry, honey," she says. "Planning a big party for my dad's seventieth." She prays silently to God not to strike her dead right there for the lie. It's a lie for a good reason. She needs to help save her friend's life. Both her friends. Castle's her friend, too.

The two of them talk softly, off and on, for the next couple of hours. She helps her change from the hospital-issue gown to a soft jersey top that she'd chosen because it won't interfere with the IV, and then she puts a little make-up on Kate, some blusher and mascara and lipstick. All very light. "Good," she says, surveying her handiwork. "If an orderly comes in now he won't mistake you for someone dead and take you to the wrong place."

"Geez, thanks, Lanie, " Kate says gloomily. "Way to make me feel better."

"What'll make you feel better, honey, is a nap. Now, I have to go out and meet someone from out of town for a little shop talk." Please, God, forgive me. That's not a complete lie. "I'll be back in the early afternoon. Don't give the nurses any crap while I'm gone."

"Sure. Okay." She gestures vaguely, waving a hand over her chest. "Thanks, really, for this."

"You're welcome." After a gentle hug, she makes her way through the hospital labyrinth and out into the late-morning sun, and decides to walk to the diner. From half a block away, she can see Castle's profile in the window. His hair is shaggy.

When she taps him on the shoulder, he jumps. "Hi, Castle." He looks awful. Puffy and frantic and sad. He's on his feet and crushes her in a hug. "Thanks for coming." When he lets go, she slides across the padded bench opposite him.

"Thanks for calling. I ordered us coffee, okay?" he points to a mug at her place. "The waitress just poured it. It's hot."

"Castle? Stop worrying. Things are going to work out."

"I don't get it, Lanie. Stress? Why is she so sick from stress? Is there some hideous case I haven't heard about? Some of them get under her skin, pull her down. Especially if there's a kid left behind. You know? She always puts herself in the kid's place."

"I know. I know." She stirs sugar into her coffee and hopes she's doing the right thing, saying the right thing. What she's about to do. These two will never work it out, and she has to be the catalyst. The little pink note urged her into it. "The stress? Okay, no particularly awful homicides. No open cases, even."

He looks confused and sad, as if he's been struck. "So then what's causing this debilitating stress?"

"Honestly? I think it's you."

TBC

 **A/N** Huge thanks to all readers, reviewers (guests very much included), followers, and favoriters.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

"Me? I? Me? What? What?" He gasps between each word, and every time the pitch of his voice rises, so that the second "what?" emerges like the squeak of a bat caught in a ceiling fan. He can't have heard right, can he? How could he be causing Beckett stress when he hasn't seen or spoken to her since May? Maybe he misunderstood. Maybe it's a sugar crash. He's had no doughnuts today. In fact, he's eaten nothing at all since 9:00 last night. He shakes his head as if he were trying get water out of his ear, and gapes at Lanie.

She takes a sip of coffee. "Yes, you. Not on purpose."

"Of course not on purpose! Jesus, Lanie, she's the last person I'd ever–. I'd–. Me? I did this to her?"

"No. Yes." She puts a steadying hand on his arm. "Look, let me go back a little in the story, okay? But first, stop beating yourself up."

"Beckett's in the hospital, Lanie," he says, glaring. "And apparently I put her there, so I think that beating myself up is appropriate. Understandable. Even if I don't understand it."

"I think you need to eat something." She smiles and waves to the waitress. "Hi. Could you bring my friend here some soup, please?"

"Soup?" asks the waitress, who's wearing one pink sneaker and one green, and doesn't look old enough to be working.

"Yes, soup. Do you have lentil?"

"Not in August. Lentil is for _winter_."

The poor girl is eyeing Castle as if he's a lunatic, and Lanie as if she were borderline. "Of course. Okay, how about a turkey sandwich? On rye, with lettuce and tomato."

She carefully writes down the order, briefly looks sideways at Castle, then back at Lanie. "He want fries with that?"

"No, thank you. He should have a glass of milk, though." She taps the back of Castle's hand. "Okay? You drink milk, don't you?"

"Sure. Yes."

"He'll have a glass of low-fat milk," she tells the waitress. "And I'd like the Greek salad, please."

"Yes, ma'am. Uh, miss. Ma'am?"

"Thank you." Once the girl has gone Lanie tries to get her lunch companion to smile as she leans across the Formica and whispers, "She called me ma'am. Twice. If she weren't about fourteen years old I'd have to take her out and smack her upside the head."

It gets no reaction from him; he's staring blankly.

"Castle? Castle!" She's not whispering any more.

"Sorry, what?"

"Focus. Please. I really need you to pay attention. You'll feel better, I promise."

"I will?"

"Yes. You look like the backend of a bender right now, but I have hopes. For both of you, you and Kate. So, listen up."

"Fine."

"I've got plenty to beat myself up about her, you know. She's my best friend, and I'm a doctor, and yet somehow I didn't notice her wasting away this summer."

He sits up violently, as if the turquoise pleather bench had just delivered 5,000 volts to his spine. "Wasting away? She's wasting away? I thought you said she was going to be fine."

"She is, assuming she starts eating. Among other things."

"What other things?"

"Hang on, I'm getting there. You gotta let me tell the story. You should know that, what with your seventeen best-sellers, or whatever."

He just nods, which is a good indication of how bad things are in his head. She knows the number is higher than that, but he hadn't bothered to correct her.

"She hasn't been herself all summer, but you know how she is. Not exactly forthcoming. I call her Turtle sometimes, because she withdraws into her shell and you can't even see her head."

"Tell me about it."

"I've been seeing a new guy lately"–she checks his reaction: zero–"nothing serious, but fun, you know? I've been spending my free time with him and not paying enough attention to her. It's not right. About a week ago we had a case and she didn't show up for it. I asked Javi and Kevin, and they said she was on vacation. They were as surprised as I was. When they'd come to work the day before and she wasn't there, they asked Montgomery where she was. 'On vacation. Three weeks.' Made it seem like that that was all he knew."

"More like all he was saying."

She nods. "You got that right. Oh, here comes lunch."

The just-barely-adolescent waitress sets their food on the table and takes a step back. "You all good here?"

"Yes, we're fine. Thank you."

"Thanks," Castle belatedly calls to the retreating mismatched sneakers and their owner.

"Eat your sandwich. Drink your milk. You need protein."

"Geez, Lanie, you're so bossy."

"That's what Kate says."

The sandwich, which had been halfway to his mouth, returns to his plate, and his expression returns to glum. "Kate," he says, and wipes his palm down his face.

Lanie chews a forkful of lettuce, olive, and feta before plowing ahead. "As soon as I found out she was on this alleged vacation, I began calling her. And texting and emailing. Nothing. Nada. I finally left her a voicemail asking her what the hell was going on, and she still didn't answer. I'm ashamed of myself. I should have known what kind of shape she was in, had an inkling, anyway. But I didn't press. I can take it if she yells at me, you know? So why didn't I? Because I was worrying about what to wear on a date? That's what teenaged girls do to their friends, not women in their thirties."

"Sounds like you're shouldering a lot of guilt."

"I was there, Castle. I should"–

" _I_ should have been there," he snaps.

"No, you shouldn't. You'd bowed out, remember? But I saw her practically every day. She was burying herself alive, and I didn't see it. Because I wasn't paying enough attention."

He sighs. "Stop. Please stop for a second. I get why you're blaming yourself. Her other friends should, too. People in the precinct. But I'm lost. Okay? I'm lost. You tell me you think she did this, whatever, nearly killing herself, because of something I did?"

Now or never. That might be too dramatic, but she has to tell him the truth. This can't go on any longer. She takes her phone out of her purse. "I'm going to show you a photo, Castle. I took it at some godawful hour this morning when I went to her apartment to get her a couple of things she could have in the hospital. When I opened the door to her place there were coffee mugs all over the kitchen. Nothing else. No food, not even some takeout container. The living room was immaculate, like no one lived there. But her bedroom was a horror. Clothes all over the floor. Bed a wreck. You know Kate—all right, you haven't been in her bedroom, much as I know that's probably on the top of your bucket list"–

"Hey!"

"Don't deny it. The point is, she's the neatest person I've ever known. And this was not her. I doubt she'd been out of there in a week, at least."

"So you took a picture of her messy bedroom?"

"No. I'm getting to that. The only tidy part of the room was her desk. It was as orderly as an operating table. But she'd left the lamp on, and I went to turn it off. That's when I saw what I photographed."

He extends his hand to take her phone.

"Not so fast. You have to promise me something before I show it to you."

"Seriously?"

"Dead seriously. I'm trusting you with something, and if Kate knew she'd kill me. Hell, she'd die if she knew that I saw it. But since she obviously can't act in her best interest, I am."

"Hope your life insurance is paid up," he says drily, draining his milk glass.

"Willing to risk it, Castle. And you know why?"

"I'll bite."

"Because she needs to risk it. And so do you. Let me ask you something. And be truthful."

He looks wary. "Go ahead."

"Why'd you break up with Gina?"

"Got to hand it to you, Lanie. You don't approach things gently."

"I'm asking for a reason."

"Fine. We were at each other's throats. I must have been crazy to ask her out there. Long-term memory loss of our short-term marriage, I guess."

"C'mon, Castle, that's not all."

"Oh, were you there?"

"No, but I've been right there for the last two years watching the chemistry experiment that you and Kate have been working on. I been waiting for the lab to blow up since the day you met. You gonna sit here and tell me that your feelings for her aren't behind your breakup with Gina?"

He grabs another paper napkin from the dented dispenser on the table and waves it like a white flag. "Fine. I surrender. Yes. Yes. My feelings for her were behind the breakup."

"And your feelings are?"

"I'm supposed to tell you when I haven't told her?"

"That's my _point_ , Castle! You should tell her."

"Just like that? Not your best idea."

"I think it's time for the photo. And if you tell her you've seen it? Or that it even exists? I will dissect you. I know my way around a scalpel very, very well."

"Show me the damn photo, Lanie."

"Swear you won't tell her."

"I swear."

She clicks on the photo, and pushes the phone gently to him, not at all sure how it will affect him, or at least what he'll say.

He looks at the tiny screen with the huge message for a very long time. And then he takes the napkins he'd used as a white flag and presses them to his eyes. He's weeping.

"You okay, Castle?"

"Gimme a minute." He dries his face. "I have to go see her. Right now."

She circles his wrist with her fingers, and her grip is strong. "Not on your life."

"Why not? You're the one telling me to take a risk, wanting us to take a risk."

"Yeah, well, not that particular risk, not just yet. Look, she's ashamed."

"Ashamed? Of what?"

"Of making herself sick. Of letting me see how vulnerable she is. And right now, despite that little love letter she wrote, the last person she wants to see is you. She thought you were done with her, Castle."

"Because I thought she was done with me, for God's sake." He slides out to the end of the table and Lanie jumps up in front of him.

"Don't you dare," she growls. "So help me."

He deflates, leans unhappily against the padded back of the bench, and looks up at her. "Don't you get it? I'm not a religious man, but this is the answer to every prayer I've had for the last two years. The biggest prayer of my life."

"Which is why you can't go barging into her hospital room when she's as low as I've ever known her. Let her get back to being more herself a little first. That's how she is, Castle. You know that. She has to be able to stand up straight and look you in the eye. You know what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, yeah. I do. But how long do I have to wait?"

"Not too long. Especially since I have an idea how to speed this along."

"You do? What?"

"I'll tell her you dumped Gina."

TBC

 **A/C** Thank you again, everyone. You're keeping me going. And to any readers in Texas: hang on tight. I hope you're all right.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

She's been home for five days. She's trying hard to reform: to eat right, to sleep, to read, to get out of the apartment, to push Castle from her mind. She's getting there. Tiny steps when what she wants is giant strides, but she doesn't have it in her. Not yet. She used to. She will again. She will. It's the last goal that's the toughest, the Castle one. The no Castle one.

Lanie had ferried her here from the hospital, and since then she has stopped by every morning on her way to work, and every evening after her shift, even if it's midnight.

It's about 8:00 and welcomingly cool for a mid-August evening when Kate hears the familiar tap-tap-tap–two short, one long and opens the door for her friend. "Hi, Lane."

"Hi, Kate," she says, dropping her bag on the floor. "What did you eat today?"

"Wow, not wasting any time getting to the point, are you?"

"Nope." Lanie walks directly to the refrigerator and begins to catalogue the contents as if they were crime-scene evidence. "Hmm. Looks like a third of the cantaloupe is gone, and one chicken drumstick." She pushes a few containers around, and picks up others. "You had some egg salad. And some spinach. Good. But whoa!" She sticks her head out of the fridge, gripping a tightly sealed box and looking peeved. "You haven't touched these buttermilk biscuits. They're my mamma's recipe and I don't bake these for just anybody. In fact I've never made them for anyone except myself, and now you."

"I know, I know. I know they're delicious, but they're so rich."

"That's the point. Trying to put some weight on you, remember? I'm gonna warm up two of them." She takes them out and puts them in the microwave. "They have a pretty short shelf life. They're no good if they're stale. You have honey, don't you?"

"Uh, yeah." She wrinkles her nose. "It might be kind of old, though."

"What a surprise. Probably been here since you moved in, however long ago that was. You were probably still walking a beat. Lucky for us honey never goes bad. Could you get it, please? The biscuits are calling its name." She puts her hand to her hear. " 'Honey! Honey! We love ya'!"

While Lanie rounds up plates, knives, and a dish of butter, Kate starts rummaging through a drawer full of take-out menus and other detritus of her culinary-deficient life.

"Your honey isn't in a cabinet?"

"No. I know I have some. It was from a breakfast thing I ordered once." More rummaging. "Aha. Here it is." She holds up four tiny peel-top plastic boxes, and waves them triumphantly.

Lanie, who is as adept an eye-roller as Kate, makes a face. "You've had supper, right? So this is dessert. What did you have for supper?"

"A couple of baby carrots. And a bowl of black bean soup."

"You'd better not be lying."

"I'm not. Check the recycling bin for the can if you don't believe me."

"Girl, I'm not the police."

"Damn straight you're not. I am."

Later, when they're sitting on the sofa drinking small glasses of wine, Lanie looks critically at the plain white plate that holds part of a biscuit and some buttery crumbs. She sighs. "Well, you ate half of it. I guess that's progress."

"It is, Lanie. It is. I promise." She swallows hard, even though there's nothing in her mouth. "I'm really trying."

"You are. It's really good. The progress. I don't mean to be hard on you, you know that. Right?"

Kate nods, but won't look her in the eye. Can't look her in the eye, or Lanie will see that her own eyes have tears in them. She wills herself not to cry. She's worked too hard since she got home. She will not cry.

"Kate?"

"Mmm."

"Did you go outside today?"

Oh, here's something to be proud of. She straightens up and smiles. "Yeah, I did. I walked to the river and sat on a bench and watched a dog walker let all the pooches–there were seven of them, all sizes–play in the water that was splashing from a fountain. It was adorable and hilarious. For some reason it reminded me of that scene in _Sound of Music_ where all seven of the von Trapp kids fall out of a little boat in the lake in front of their house. They're soaking wet and laughing and screaming and sliding around and their father is so pissed off." She's laughing now as she plays the movie in her head.

"I've never seen it," Lanie says off-handedly, helping herself to the rest of Kate's biscuit.

"Are you kidding? I loved it. It always made me want to have a bunch of brothers and sisters. How did you get through childhood without it? It's on TV about twenty times every Christmas. You really haven't seen it? That's practically unAmerican."

Lanie sniffs. "I thought _Sound of Music_ took place in Austria and had Nazis. Doesn't sound very American to me."

That earns a snort from Kate. "Exactly what Castle would say." Shit. That is exactly the kind of thing Castle would say. He loves to be literal, just to drive her crazy. Now it just breaks her heart. She turns her head to the window, and squeezes her eyes shut.

Dammit, Lanie thinks. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Kate's about to shut down. She has to turn this around. Maybe this is the time? She really shouldn't wait any longer, and it could salvage the evening. "That reminds me," she says brightly, as if she hadn't noticed the depressing shift in mood. "I was going to tell you this as soon as I got here, but I got derailed by the biscuits." She waits for Kate to say something, and finally she does. It's not much, but it's something.

"What?"

"Guess who I saw today?"

"I dunno. The ghost of Christmas past?"

"Nope. Castle."

Kate almost gives herself whiplash as she turns back. "What? Where?"

"Jumping Java."

"Really?"

"Really." Another lie, may God forgive her.

"But that's where." She lets her sentence trail off.

Lanie nods, doing her best to convey both understanding and encouragement. "Where he gets your coffee. I know. I saw him through the window when I was walking by and couldn't believe it. He looked about as bad as you, only the flip side."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Exhausted, unhappy, and apparently the direct recipient of all the weight that you've lost this summer."

"Really? I'm amazed Gina didn't muzzle him."

"Maybe she did. Maybe that's why they broke up."

Near-whiplash is replaced by an all-but-displaced jaw that drops precipitously. "They broke up? How do you know?"

"I asked him."

"Stupid me, of course you did."

"Well, what choice did I have? Man looks awful. His hair wasn't even groomed. Castle, of all people. Anyway, I went in there, got a coffee, and sat down next to him at this little table where he was slouched like he'd lost his last friend."

"And what, said, 'Hi, Castle, did you break up with Gina'?"

"Nooooo. I asked how he was and what the hell was he doing in Manhattan on a gorgeous summer day when he could be lounging around in the Hamptons, unlike those of us who really work for a living."

"And what did he say?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing? Castle? No likely. The man's a motormouth."

"Yeah, well, I hadda bring in the big guns. I told him he looked like crap and even that didn't work, so I just asked him. 'What's going on with you? And don't give me a shrug like Beckett does'."

"Shit, you mentioned me?"

"You're the biggest gun of all, honey."

She flushes. Doesn't know what to say, even to Lanie. "Not any more."

"I think you're wrong. Just listen a minute. The minute I said your name he was all fertootst."

"Fertootst?"

"Discombobulated."

Finally, a smile. "I know what fertootst means, Lanie. I just never expected you to speak Yiddish. You been hanging out with Perlmutter behind my back?"

"Nope. Guy I'm seeing. You know, Seth. Jewish, remember?"

"I do. So, Castle was fertootst? Really? Because of me?"

"You've made him fertootst since day one. And a lot of other things. You going to keep interrupting or let me get to the big thing?"

"Go to the big thing."

Lanie notices that the color has stayed in her cheeks, and it's a hopeful sign.

"He finally said, 'How's Beckett?' and I said, 'I'll answer your question after you answer mine. What's up? You look like someone who's fallen into the swamp.' Naturally he asked me what swamp and I said the worst one, Self-Pity. And that that usually means one of two things: trouble with love or trouble with money. And since it's hard to believe that he's short of cash, it must be love. That's when I asked him, 'Things not good with Gina?' He put his nose in his coffee and finally said, 'We broke up.' "

"That's it? You didn't ask him anything else?"

Unlike the Lanie Parish eye-roll, the glare does not equal that of Kate, but it's pretty damn ferocious, and she knows it. "You seriously think I'd stop there?"

Kate grimaces, her lips a tight line.

"Didn't take long for him to spill his guts like I'd sliced him open on my table."

"Lovely image."

"Shut up." Another glare. "He told me they were fighting so much they barely made it through Memorial Day weekend and she came back to the city. He's been out there alone all summer, moping around and eating himself into a stupor. Not his words, but true. Kate, I know lovesick when I see it, and right now I see it in two people I know: you and Castle. That man is so in love with you if you weren't my best friend I'd find it nauseating. Now, you might have fooled Doctor Field with your story about stress from your mother's case, but that's a more-or-less constant stressor for you. No, the biggest stress is your life without Castle."

The color has gone. Kate is gray and shaken. "Did you tell him that? Jesus, please tell me you didn't."

"Of course I didn't. That's up to you. I didn't tell him anything about your diagnosis because I can't and I wouldn't." Hey, God? she asks wordlessly. That's true. I didn't tell him what her diagnosis is. "But I did say that he should call you, that I thought you'd really like hearing from him." OK, God, I know I'm getting in deeper here, since I didn't say that either. I'll go to church every day for a month, I swear. Just help me get these two together.

"Does he know I'm not at the precinct? Vacation?"

"Probably. He's still friends with Javi and Ryan and Montgomery. Might have organized a poker game or something. Found out that way." Oh, man, what had she done? She showily looks at her watch. "Oh, it's late. I have an early shift tomorrow. Gotta run. I'll come by in the morning, okay? Even though it'll be seven? Bring you real coffee. If you're asleep I'll leave it on the counter and you can nuke it when you get up." She takes the two wine glasses in one hand and Kate's plate in the other and deposits them in the kitchen sink. "Gotta run, honey," she says, hugging Kate hard before she all dashes from the apartment.

As soon as she's outside, she calls Castle and fills him in a bit. "Sorry, she blindsided me with that question about your knowing if she's on vacation."

"So you mentioned the boys?"

"Yeah."

"Do they know she's been in the hospital?"

"No. That's her business. If she wants them to know, she'll tell 'em." There's such a long silence that she thinks the call has dropped. "Castle?"

"Hold on, I'm thinking."

She can hear him breathing, and she's holding her breath. She hates this balancing act she's gotten herself into. Don't tell Castle this, do tell him that. Tell Kate that, but not this.

"I'll go see them tomorrow," Castle says.

"What, go to the precinct?"

"Yeah, tell them I had to come in for a book thing, thought I'd drop in for old times' sake. It's the easiest way to get them to tell me that Beckett's not there."

"They gonna buy that?"

"Don't know why not. Just because I'm not following her any more doesn't mean I can't say hi to old friends. Bring them all lunch."

"You'd better get a haircut."

"What? Why?"

"Your hair usually looks like an Editor's Pick in _GQ_ , but it's all raggedy. And no product. First time I've seen that happen."

"Geez, thanks. I don't think Ryan and Espo will notice my tonsorial neglect."

"Tonsorial neglect? Seriously. Sometimes I don't know what Kate sees in you. Just get a freaking haircut. Believe me, Ryan will notice if you don't and it'll raise a red flag. Kate didn't have mascara on one day and he was so worried he called me at the morgue."

"Fine, fine, fine. I'll be all kinds of nonchalant when I ask where Beckett is."

"Atta boy. I'm leaving everything up to you now. Don't screw it up. Bye." She pockets her phone and shakes her head. "These two. I need a drink."

Late the next morning, having made an emergency request for a hair appointment, he's appraising himself in the mirror. His hair is perfect now, and he'd had a shave. Ryan won't suspect a thing. Next stop: Burgrz-n-Bunz, which, appalling name aside, has the best cheeseburgers he's ever tasted.

At noon he steps out of the elevator, his nerves frayed, and sees Ryan and Esposito shooting rubber bands and calls out to them. "Hard at work, I see. I leave here and in two months all discipline is shot to hell." Both men get to their feet, but it's Ryan who envelops him in a hug.

"Hey, Castle. Great to see you, man. Nice surprise."

"Thought you were through with us, bro," Espo adds.

"Nah, I never said that. Just not working here any more. I had to be in town for a couple of days and thought I'd drop by and replenish my supply of precinct atmosphere. I'm still writing Nikki Heat, you know, and she feeds on the recycled air in here." He looks around casually. "Speaking of which, where's Beckett?" He hoists a shopping bag chest-high. "I brought lunch for all of us."

"Vacation," the guys say in tandem.

"Vacation? She never takes a vacation. Oh, wait." He narrows his eyes. "Did she go somewhere with Demming? The Jersey shore?" He pretends not to notice the looks that Espo and Ryan exchange.

Ryan scratches the back of his neck, which is a sure tell that he's uncomfortable. "Uh. No. Uh, they're not dating anymore. Demming's been going out with Begley."

"Begley? The one with the big–. The one with freckles? In the evidence room?"

"Yeah."

"Huh. So, where'd she go? Beckett, I mean. I still can't believe she actually took a vacation."

"Neither could we," Espo says, but stops at that. "But things change."

"Hey, Castle," Ryan says too eagerly, "I'm starving. You really got lunch in there?"

"I really do." Ultimately, it's a nice time, and they chat almost as if nothing has happened, although everything has. And it feels worse than odd to be sitting in the break room without Beckett anywhere. There's not even the slightest hint of her pear-and-freesia hand cream; she must have been gone for a while.

"How long's Beckett been gone?"

" 'bout two weeks," Espo says around the crispy loop of a curly fry.

"Two weeks? Wow. She must be coming back when, Monday?"

"Don't think so,"Ryan says tentatively. "Cap said three weeks. Right, Jav?"

"Yeah. I think."

They don't know. They're a little protective of her, but they don't know. He doesn't need to keep after them; he's spent two years working with them, and he's certain that they're not hiding anything. They polish off lunch and small talk, and he leaves with a plan of action firmly set. Lanie might be pissed, probably think he's too hasty, but he's sure. Lanie might as well have fused that pink note to his cerebellum, tattooed it into his skin, injected it his blood stream: Beckett loves him, and he's not waiting.

Still, he can't be completely incautious. With great difficulty, he gets through the afternoon. He has to wait until it's dark enough that people–specifically one person, specifically Kate–begin to turn on their lights. At 7:45–just before the florist closes, though he'd called his order in hours earlier–he picks up a bouquet of anemones, most of them purple, but a few red and blue for contrast. Half an hour later, not long after sunset, he's standing outside her door. Is he crazy?

He knocks.

Nothing.

He knocks again, a little louder.

"Lanie," he hears from the other side of the door, as the tumbler on the lock falls. "How come you're not using your laughably unsecret secret knock?"

The door opens. She's so thin yet so beautiful that she steals his breath away, and he struggles to find his voice. "Hey," he says, hoping that he doesn't sound as shaky as he feels. "I saw your light on. Figured you were home."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you for everything. And Texas readers who checked in, I'm glad that you're safe.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Castle? It's Castle. She looks awful. Lanie told her so. She'd said that Castle looks awful, too, but he doesn't. He doesn't. Anemones. He's holding anemones. They must be for her. Some of them are blue like his eyes, and most are purple. Her favorite color. Does he know that? He brought her anemones. She looks at his mouth. His lips are slightly apart. It's erotic. It's mesmerizing. Everything feels like it's happening in slow motion, the way it does when you remember falling. She's not sure if his lips are moving, even though she's watching them. He has beautiful lips. He did say something, a moment ago, or maybe just now? In slow motion, it's hard to tell which. So she asks him. "What?"

"What?"

"What did you say?"

Even though it's cool, he's beginning to sweat. "Uh, that I saw your light on and figured you were home." Is she going to let him in? He'd thought that this was a great idea, but it might be a disaster.

"My light?"

"Yes. It's on." He gestures to the lamp that he can see through the open door, a prime example of pointing out the obvious. He doesn't point out something equally obvious, which is that she has no bra on under her wisp of a camisole. Or a shirt on over it.

"You were looking at my window?"

Shit, now she thinks he's a stalker. "Oh. No, see, I brought lunch to the boys at the precinct today. Esposito and Ryan. And me. The three of us, but I thought it would be the four of us. I was surprised that you weren't there and they said you were on vacation and I didn't know that and so I wondered if you'd gone away but when I happened to be in your neighborhood a while ago I thought, it occurred to me, oh, maybe you're taking a staycation because I know you really love the city when it empties out and in summer a lot of people go away so it's not as crowded which is great although there are more tourists so it's probably a wash." He pauses for a calming breath. The breath comes, but the calm doesn't. "And then I had a drink at that bar, you know the one on, um, Sullivan." There must be a bar on Sullivan Street, surely there is, because he doesn't want her to catch him in a lie on a dumb mistake. "And I thought it would be nice to bring you flowers since I haven't seen you in a long time and if you were on a staycation you'd be home to enjoy them, not like when you're working and you'd never see them except for five minutes in the morning and five minutes at night. So I got these on the off-chance you were. Home, I mean. And then I walked over here which is pretty much on my way to the loft and I looked up and yes, your light was on, so I came in. Came in your building."

He'd rehearsed this a dozen times this afternoon, and it's all shot to hell. It's beginning to feel like hell, too, but he can't go without giving her the flowers. He holds the bouquet out to her. "They're anemones. I hope you like them."

When she takes them from his hand her fingers accidentally brush his wrist. It's so soft, as soft as the petals look. She wants to say so many things, but what she does instead is blurt out two words. "Forsaken love."

He shifts uneasily. Lanie hadn't said anything about mental instability, but what? He wants to kiss her, but that seems an unsuitable response to "forsaken love."

"Anemones," she says, tilting the flowers back towards him but holding them tightly. "They mean 'forsaken love'."

"They do? Oh. I was going for another meaning. 'Excitement about something in the future'."

"Yeah, well, you've always been the optimist in this relationship, Castle." Relationship? She said they're in a relationship? "I mean, you're the hopeful one. More hopeful one. More than I am. Of the two of us." She suddenly notices that she's strangling the flowers. "Would you like to come in?"

"Could I have the flowers back?"

He wants to leave? What did she do? Her brain is so screwed up. She thrusts the bouquet at him as if it were on fire. "Take them."

"No, I want you to take them." This is beginning to resemble a vaudeville routine, and if he weren't so upset he'd be laughing. "I'd like to start over. May I start over?"

She's gaping, and her eyes are huge.

"I hope that's a yes. I'm going to take it as a yes, since you didn't say no." He runs his hand nervously through his $300 haircut. "Hey, Beckett." Okay, that's better, he's better. He beams at her. "I'm really, really happy to see you."

"You are? But I look terrible."

"You couldn't look terrible if you were dressed in a burlap bag and emerging from primordial ooze, which you aren't." He offers her the anemones again. "These are for you."

She accepts them graciously this time. "Thanks, Castle. That's sweet. Would you like to come in?"

"Yes. Thanks." He looks around, still a bit uncomfortable. "Wow, you've really made something of this place. It was so empty before. I mean, after your other apartment, er."

"Blew up? Yeah, well, I didn't have much left to put in here, but it's coming along. Some stuff my Dad had in storage, like a really nice sofa, and then I got, you know, things." He's still barely over the threshold, and not moving. "Want to sit down?"

"On the nice sofa from your Dad?"

"Yeah."

"I would. Thanks."

She turns her head in the direction of the kitchen sink, then back to him, as if to reassure herself that he's actually there. "Got to put the flowers in water."

When she stretches to get a vase from a high shelf, her camisole rides up, and even from several feet away he can see every one of her ribs. They look as if they're about to burst through her skin. She's skeletal. He covers up his gasp with a cough.

"You okay?" she says.

"Fine. Just a tickle."

"Would you like something to drink? Water? Coffee?"

"Coffee would be nice. If it's not too much trouble."

"No trouble, Castle. I can make coffee in my sleep," she says, filling the vase at the sink. "I probably sometimes do." She plumps the anemones, carries them into the living room, and sets them on the coffee table. "They're beautiful. Thank you." Nothing to say, everything to say. "Would you like, um, would you like something to eat with your coffee?"

Whoa, that's a shock. "You have food?"

"Yes," she snaps. "I have food."

"I didn't mean to sound rude. It's just that you"–

"Just that I'm so thin I must be starving myself? That what you were going to say?"

"No, no, not at all." Jesus, he really touched a nerve. "I'm sorry. I meant that the last time I was here, not here, but your old place, you were very short on food."

"Yeah, well I have a lot now."

"Good. That's good. You have anything like a cookie?" He sounds like an idiot, but she's knocked him off-kilter. "I always like a cookie, or something, when I have coffee at night."

With her hands on her hips, she hangs her head, and finally straightens up again. "I'm sorry, too," she says with a hint of a smile. "By any chance do you like buttermilk biscuits?"

"You mean _homemade_? I love them."

"Yeah. Homemade by Lanie. Her mother's recipe."

Lanie. Both of them flinch inwardly at the name of the person not in the room but very much in the room. He comes to the rescue, such as it is, first. "Sounds perfect. Want help?"

"I'm fine. I'll bring them with the coffee." Bring your manners, too, Kate, she tells herself. The man came to see you. Gave you flowers that mean excitement for the future, for God's sake.

He's never felt so awkward, not even in the series of first, and frequently last, dates of his adolescence. Things used to be so easy between them. Up your game, he tells himself, but be gentle. When he sees her coming, bearing a tray, he jumps to his feet.

"Sit down, Castle. I've got it."

She eases herself onto the sofa, leaving a chasm of blue upholstery between them. She's so light that he hardly feels it when she sits. He helps himself to a biscuit, and bites into it. Buttery, flaky, fantastic. "Mmmf. Delicious."

"Told you." It's way past time to get the conversation going, although the butterflies that are carrying on in her stomach are making that almost impossible. She's going to ask him why he's in town in August, but what comes out is, "Do you know what you call a group of butterflies?"

He really should have asked Lanie the mental stability question. She's so–. What is she? She's so unBeckettlike at the moment. "Is this a riddle? A trick question?" She laughs at that and he hopes that it's not an indication of nascent hysteria.

"No." She puts down her mug and presses both hands against her concave stomach. "No. I looked up the collective name for butterflies once: it's rabble. Isn't that weird? A group of the most delicate creatures imaginable is called rabble." She's unaccountably feeling brave. Somehow saying that, saying something that flew out of her with neither her permission nor any forethought, has given her courage. "I'm so nervous. Worst butterflies of my life." She pauses, has another sip of coffee, and looks sideways at him. "I'm really, really happy to see you, too, Castle."

"You are?"

She wonders if he realizes that he's still holding part of a biscuit.

"Yeah. So, um, you're in town." Of course he's in town. He's sitting right here. "I mean, I didn't expect to see you."

"Because I'd be in the Hamptons?"

"Yeah. But also maybe ever. I thought I might never see you again except one-dimensionally, in the photo on the backs of your books."

If he weren't already sitting down, that would knock him to his knees. The thought that they would never see each other again is so painful that he can't address it, at least not yet. "Well, I'm here, in three-D." He hopes that sounds happy; he hopes that he looks happy.

Huh. He didn't say anything about why he was in town. She won't bring it up again, and least not yet. "So, you saw the guys at lunch?"

"I did. I brought lunch for everyone, including you. That's when they mentioned that you were on vacation. I said." He winces. "I said I bet you'd gone to the Jersey shore with Demming. And then they told me that you weren't seeing each other anymore."

"They told you that?"

"Well, they didn't offer it up. It was just because of what I said about you and Demming. They said he's dating Begley now." He's looking sideways at her, and she seems a little pale. "Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"No, it's fine." She flaps her hand as if to dismiss the idea. "He and I weren't going anywhere, and I called it quits, so it's not like I'm jealous. But every time I see her in the evidence room she makes me feel inadequate."

"Inadequate? She's very sweet, but the goldfish I had in fourth grade was smarter than she is. I was looking for DNA results once and couldn't find them. Turns out she files them under 'J.' When I asked her why she looked at me as if I were short a few brain cells and said, ' "J" for Jeans.' It took me a second, but then I said, 'Jeans! Oh, you mean genes, with a "G".' And she said, 'I don't think you spell it with a "G",' but she kindly got me the file and I thanked her. And then I went out in the hall and smacked my head against the wall."

Beckett opens her mouth, shuts it, waits, and opens it again. "I wasn't talking about her intellect, Castle."

"Oh."

Her eyes move down. "I was talking about her boobs."

As responses go, this one is probably an exceedingly poor choice, but he hasn't made a choice. It just happens. He bursts out laughing, and goes on laughing until he's tilting sideways, breaching the upholstered chasm between them until his hand, entirely of its own accord, lands on top of hers. But instead of being embarrassed or nervous, he's liberated. "Never, ever, ever feel inadequate," he says, daring to look her right in the eyes. Her gorgeous, amberish eyes. Should he let go of her hand? The spot in the frontal lobe of his brain that governs impulse control is at war with his entire heart, and the heart wins. Not only does he not let go of her hand, he squeezes it. It's then that she takes him utterly by surprise, not by withdrawing her hand or letting it stay–and she is letting it stay–but by the question she asks.

"Where's Gina?"

"Gina?" He might have a death grip on her hand now.

"Yeah, you know. Your publisher, your ex-wife and, last time I saw you, your girlfriend."

"Ah, the trifecta of horror. Wait, no, there's nothing horrible about the ex-wife part, but the other two, yeesh." The instant he says that, she pulls her hand away. What the hell?

"So you're not together any more?"

"No."

"Good," she says, as she takes her hands–both now free–puts them around his face, and kisses him. There's absolutely nothing gentle about it.

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you for continuing to read and leaving good cheer. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This chapter decided to go into M territory. If you don't have a passport for that, please stop reading at "I hope I can surprise you," and begin again at "You were right."

My God, the man can kiss. She may have started it, but wow. Wow. That was the kiss of a man who's–. "Oh, shit." She jumps backward off the sofa.

"Kate?" What happened? She looks terrified. She just gave him the kiss of his life and then this? "Are you all right? Did I hurt you?"

"No. No, no. God, no. It's Lanie."

"Lanie?"

"She's been stopping by every evening since, uh." Since I was such an idiot and had to be hospitalized, she doesn't add.

He's off the sofa now, too, an alarm bell jangling in his head. "Wait, is that why you thought she was at the door? When I knocked?"

"Yes. Oh, God. What time is it? What time is it?" She's pulling the hair off her forehead with such force he's afraid she'll scalp herself. "Where the hell is my watch?"

"It's nine. Nine o'clock."

"I have to text her, right now. I don't want her to come over."

"You don't?"

"Three's definitely a crowd at the moment, Castle." The terror in her face has disappeared, replaced by something he hasn't seen in her before, something he never thought he'd see. The old song "Lucky to Be Me," with full Broadway orchestration, rushes into his head, and silences the alarm bell.

She's talking as she runs to the kitchen where her phone is sitting on the counter. "I have to think, I have to think. No. No. Yes! Got it." She's humming and nodding, typing as fast as if texting were an Olympic sport. "There!" she says triumphantly, holding up the phone like a gold medal.

"What did you tell her?"

"That Madison came over and brought dinner for her and me from her restaurant. You remember her, right?"

Is she serious? He'll never forget Madison Queller of "little Castle babies," the best three words ever spoken in the interrogation room of the Twelfth Precinct. "I do," he says casually, not giving anything away. Little Castle babies? He's already counting on it.

"I said that Madison hadn't seen my new apartment and she wanted to, and that we ate and had some wine so I was calling it a night and would see her tomorrow."

"Good." It's not good, it's fantastically good.

"So," Beckett says, with an irresistible mix of bashfulness and eagerness that makes her seem very young. "Want to go back to the sofa?"

"Sure." He should have come up with something a lot better than "sure," but his brain is too addled.

" 'cause I'd like to start over."

She does, and they do. It's a perfect recreation, maybe even better than the first one. "That didn't feel like forsaken love to me," he says later, trying to refill his lungs with air.

"It didn't?"

"No."

She's feeling braver by the minute. Somehow she'd moved onto, or been moved onto, his lap; her knees are bracketing his thighs, and his breath is warm against her face. She has no idea how long they've been kissing, but she begins to undo his shirt, very slowly. After each button slips free, she brushes her lips against the newly exposed patch of skin. His breath is getting warmer, and faster. "How about this, Castle?" she asks as she looks up at him, one button away from his navel.

"What?" He sounds like he's close to strangling.

"Does this feel like excitement about something in the future?"

"More like, more like"–he slips his hands under her camisole, "excitement about the present." His fingertips come close to meeting behind her back, and he tries not to think how thin she must be for that to be possible. He concentrates instead on her skin, how soft and smooth is, how toned she is beneath it, how her entire body responds to his touch. Bending his head to kiss her in the hollow between the two sides of her rib cage, he slides his palms forward and up. His thumbs make contact first, with the underside of her breasts, and then with her nipples, which are already pebbled and taut. When he runs the pads of his thumbs over them, she moans.

"Don't stop, don't stop."

"Wasn't planning to."

She wriggles against him, and presses her mouth against his ear. "You love copping a feel, don't you?"

"What I really love is feeling up a cop," he says, before her mouth covers his in a kiss so deep that he thinks he might end up unconscious. Deliriously happy, but out cold. He doesn't find out, though, because she breaks off the kiss and nuzzles his neck.

"So hard," she whispers.

"No kidding. I can hardly breathe."

"I meant this," she says, unzipping his jeans in one lightning move, and wrapping her hand around him. "Time to get off, Castle."

He laughs at that. "Why, Detective, so bold."

"Off the sofa, buster. Time to get off the _sofa_ and into my bed."

Only days ago he would have thought this an impossibility. Wished for it, yes; dreamed of it, many times, but reality? No way. And yet here it is, here she is, here he is, here they are. They're a they now. And much as he wants that, longs for it, a tiny part of him detaches and tries to assess Kate's emotional state. He knows–though obviously she doesn't want him to know–that she was under such extreme stress that she had to be hospitalized. He knows that she's frighteningly underweight. And he knows–though she'd be furious if she knew how he knows–that she's in love with him. He's had a couple of bad months; hers have been worse. And it's their own fault. It's misery of their own making, but it can be righted, is being righted. Still, she's vulnerable, and frail. Will she regret this rushing in? Should he take this more slowly? They're both naked from the waist up, and he concentrates on keeping his eyes on hers. "Are you okay with this, Kate?" he asks. "Are you sure?"

Those eyes are immediately blazing, and she shoves her hand hard against his chest. "Are you insane? Do I act like I'm not sure or not ready?"

He engulfs her hand with his before she can take it away. "Shhh. A few hours ago we were a wreck. We hadn't seen each other in months, we weren't speaking, and now look at us. I just want to be careful with"–

"Careful with what, Castle? My heart? What? Are you not sure about me?"

"I've never been so sure of anything in my life."

She looks at him for a long time, or what seems like a long time. Not that he minds. Not when she's looking at him the way she is now. She begins to dissolve against him; it's like being in a bath of Beckett.

"Then let's go," she says softly, and tilts her head slightly to the left. "My bedroom's that way. Wanna race me?"

"No." He runs his arms down her body and scoops her up. "I want us to get there at the same time."

He's halfway across the floor when she starts kicking him in the small of his back. "Hurry."

" 'm not hurrying." When he reaches the bed he deposits her carefully there, her head on her pillow, then crawls up her body until he's directly over her, propped up on his forearms. "We're not hurrying this. It's gonna be like slow cooking."

"Slow cooking? You calling me a hunk of meat?"

"Never. Although in my dreams you've always been delicious."

"You've dreamed of me, huh? Of eating"–

"I've dreamed of everything about you."

"Me, too."

"I hope not," he says, caressing her cheek. "I hope I can surprise you."

And he does, oh, how he does. It astonishes her that a man of his size and disposition can be so tender, so gentle, and so focussed completely on her. He touches her everywhere–that's no surprise–but so delicately that sometimes she thinks that he's lost contact with her skin. But then he changes the pressure, massaging where he had been feathering, and when he adds his tongue she can no longer hold still. He uses one hand to hold her down, while the other continues to work her up. How does he have such self-control here when he exhibits it nowhere else? She feels as if she's about to burst, so why doesn't he? She's trying to meet his patience with her own, but any second now it will be out of the question.

He's been whispering sweet things to her off and on, mostly nonsense, and then things change. He's pushed her legs almost as far apart as they can go, and his lips are at her right ear, his voice husky and urgent. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, yes, c'mon, please. I can't"–

"Shh. Are you ready for me to fuck you with my tongue?"

She can't answer because she–because she can't. He slides down her slick body so fast that she's afraid he'll shoot off the end of the bed, but he doesn't. And the tongue that a microsecond ago was at her earlobe is now licking the inside of her thigh, first right, then left. It's obscenely good.

"Oh," he says, and licks her again, a little higher up.

"You're." Lick. Higher still, and for longer.

"So." Lick, all around her clitoris. He stays there for a bit, licking her to distraction, then raises his head just long enough to say, "Juicy."

No lick this time, because this time his warm, probing, wicked, miraculous tongue is inside her, and whatever self-control she'd had is gone, wherever it is that self-control goes. She comes hard and fast around him, screaming she has no idea what. It takes her a while to recover, and when she does she opens her eyes into his.

"You know," he says, "I'm kind of a superstitious guy, and ordinarily on Friday the thirteenth I wouldn't leave home. Figure only bad things would happen to me outside. But I've been off my game lately, and I didn't even realize until I was at your door that today's the thirteenth of August, Friday."

She rolls over, in the process rolling him onto his back. "So what are you saying, Castle? You saying you got lucky today?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Well, here's news you can use. You're just about to get lucky again. Maybe luckier. But if you keep me waiting like you did a while ago, I will kill you."

He puts his hands up, palms out. "Please, please don't shoot me!"

She rises up on her still slightly quivering knees, takes him in her hand, and sinks down slowly. God, it feels good, he feels good. Indescribably good. She nods at him as she starts to move. "You're the one who's gonna do the shooting."

He wants to make this last as long as he can, but she's making it impossible, clenching around him, rocking, leaning at such an angle that he can see the sweat glistening between her breasts. If he's coming, she's damn well coming with him, and he has just enough wits remaining to take his thumb and press down hard on her at the perfect moment. And perfect is exactly what it is.

"You were right," he says afterwards, when their heart rates are back to normal. More or less, anyway. "I was even luckier that time."

She giggles–something else that he'd never expected her to do. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. But that line about me doing the shooting? Corny."

"I thought you liked corny," she says, tickling him. "I know you liked the shooting."

"I like both," he says, grabbing a pillow and putting it under his head. "Hey. This smells of my aftershave." He sniffs it again. "Verbena and lime, definitely my aftershave."

"Of course it does. You've been all over it." Oh, hell, he's caught her red-handed.

"But I didn't use any today. I got a shave when I got a haircut and he doesn't carry the brand I use." He looks a little sick. "Please don't tell me Demming uses this."

That's worse, so much worse than the truth that she fesses up. She thought that she'd be mortified, but telling him was actually exhilarating, and he loved it.

"Olfactory research, Beckett? I'm impressed. But you were that far gone on me already that you tracked down my aftershave and sprinkled it on your pillow?"

The reality of that catches in her throat. "Yeah," she says, her voice a little wobbly. "I was in a pretty bad way this summer."

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too." She takes his hand between both of hers. "I didn't eat much. I guess you figured that out."

"Pretty hard to miss."

"I'm sorry I'm so skinny, Castle. I could carry an egg in my collarbone. I probably bruised you with my bony arms and legs. Lanie says I look terrible, and she's right. "

"Hey, you're beautiful. And Lanie says a lot of things."

"Like what?"

"Like I look terrible. Blowfish, she called me. Sorry I'm so fat, Beckett."

"I don't care." She pinches his waist. "They're called love handles for a reason, you know."

"Shall we put them to the test?"

"Definitely. We have a lot to catch up on." It's probably four o'clock before they finally fall asleep.

A few hours later, in the hallway outside Kate's apartment, Lanie checks her watch. 7:30. Kate's an early riser, but she didn't answer the first or the second knock. She's probably still asleep, maybe from the wine. It'll do her good.

Lanie gets the key, quietly turns it in the lock, and steps inside. The curtains are still closed, but there's enough strong summer light filtering through them to make the living room visible. It's tidy as ever, except for two things on the floor next to the sofa: a tiny camisole that she knows belongs to Kate and a blue shirt that she recognizes at once as Castle's. In the distance she can see the bedroom door, which is open a crack; the room is dark.

She wants to sing and dance and hoot and holler and pop open champagne. Instead, she puts the to-go cup of coffee that she's carrying on the kitchen counter, and digs around in her purse for a pen and the little package of Post-its that she keeps in a pocket. "Guess I should have brought two cups," she writes. "You'll just have to share. xo" She sticks it on the plastic lid, tiptoes back out, and pulls the front door shut.

"My work is done," she says to herself happily on the way to the stairs. "You go, girl."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you for your wonderful enthusiasm, and special thanks to the guests whom I can't thank any other way.


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

For the first time in months she's hungry, really hungry. Eat-like-a-piggy hungry. But she doesn't want to get out of bed. For the first time ever her bed is occupied by the man of her dreams. He's been the man of her dreams, literally in her dreams, for longer than she'd been willing to acknowledge, but now he's here in the flesh. Oh, that flesh. He's sprawled out on his stomach, naked, so his delectable flesh is available. What could it hurt to sample it a little, especially since she's hungry? Except that hungry as she is for him, she needs fuel. She's got the strength for a little predatory, preparatory nibble, though, so she slides out from under the hand that's between her shoulder blades, and turns on to her side. He's still asleep, and she takes the hand and kisses the knuckles, then seals her mouth around his index finger and starts sucking and teasing with her tongue. When she adds teeth, his eyes open halfway.

"This," he says groggily, stretching his left leg until he can hook his heel around her calf, "is the best wake-up ever."

She releases his finger, and licks her lips. "You taste so good."

"I do, huh?"

"I could eat you up."

"You did. Around midnight, I think. I loved it."

"Shut up."

"Not what you said then."

If she had the strength, she'd swat him. "Food, Castle. I need food. And coffee."

"Okay, then, let's get up. And since you have food in your house we don't even have to get dressed. We can have breakfast in our casual attire."

"I dunno, Castle. I might have a black tie around here somewhere. Make things a little more formal."

"Ties, plural. I distinctly remember two ties, but they weren't black. I'm pretty sure they ended up on the floor."

"Mmmph." She rolls away from him and stands up, pausing for a moment by the edge of the bed to see if she's still capable of walking. When she's almost reached the kitchen a large, warm arm circles her waist.

"Gotcha."

"You do. You got me."

"Good. And now we'll both get coffee."

At that very moment she sees it, a paper cup with a plastic lid, sitting on the counter. Her hand shoots out to grab it and finds it faintly warm, so it's been here for a while, but not very long. She stares in not-quite-muted terror at the yellow Post-it note that perches jauntily on top. "Lanie. Holy hell."

Castle peers over her shoulder. "What's that?"

"Nothing. Old coffee. I'm throwing it away. We'll make a pot."

She's peeled off both the lid and the note and is trying to pour the tepid contents into her sink when he stops her. "Where did that come from?"

"What? Oh. Nowhere." She can't finish because he's using his hand, which is much larger and stronger than hers, to tip the cup upright.

"Not nowhere. This wasn't there last night."

"Of course it was."

"Of course it wasn't."

"You just didn't notice it."

"Oh, I noticed everything, Kate. E-ve-ry-thing. If you got those ties and blindfolded me I bet I could describe everything in this room."

Her shoulders droop. He's right. He does notice everything, and there's no point in trying to cover this up. "Fine," she says in resignation. "It was Lanie. She left it here for me this morning. Since we were asleep–God, I hope we were asleep–I didn't hear her knock and she must have used her key to get in."

"This morning?" His voice is as squeaky as a 13-year-old boy's.

"Yeah," she mumbles. "She's been coming by in the morning with coffee on her way to work."

His immediate thought is that that used to be his job, bringing her coffee every morning, only at work, not here. After all that they've been through, the progress that they've made, he wants to try to keep everything open, even if he's still concerned that she's frail. Though there was nothing frail about her when she–. He shakes his head; he's not going to forget that for a while, if ever. He puts his arm around her again, and pulls her close. "Last night you said that Lanie's been stopping by every evening. But she's been stopping by in the morning, too?" He feels her nod against his chest, and he drops his voice a little. "Is there a reason why she's been doing that?"

"I think you know, Castle."

"I guess I can guess." Maybe she's waiting for him to guess out loud, because she doesn't say a word. Or maybe, and far more likely, she wants him to change the subject. "I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to press." She's mute and unmoving for so long that he's afraid that he stepped over the line. And just as he's about to apologize again, she turns in his embrace to face him.

"That's good," she says solemnly, before her entire face opens into a grin. "Because after all the sex we had last night and this morning I don't think my body could take it if you pressed anything."

He can't help it: he laughs, and so does she. They laugh so hard that they have to hold on to each other to keep from falling over. When they finally stop he says, "I know there's a Post-it on there. Are you going to let me read it?"

She blushes a little and holds it up in front of him. "I think we're busted, Castle."

"I think you're right. Hey, she's not going to come back for a surprise visit, is she?"

"No."

"Good, then we can stay naked. I'm going to make us breakfast."

Halfway through their scrambled eggs they go back to bed, but not to eat breakfast. That's the danger, and the delight, of cooking while you're naked.

It's much later, when they're soaking in the tub together in the middle of the afternoon, that he dares to broach the subject. "Um, about Lanie."

Kate abruptly stops running her nails across his thighs. "What about her?"

"I saw her."

"What?" She moves so fast that some of the water sloshes onto the floor. "You saw her this _morning_?"

"No, no, no. I absolutely did not. You know when I was telling you last night about having lunch with the boys and them telling me you were on vacation? What I didn't say is that I also saw Lanie."

"Oh, that. I know you did."

"You do?"

"You didn't figure that out, Mister I Notice Everything? When I said I was sorry about being so skinny and that Lanie told me I looked awful, you said that she told you that you looked like a blowfish."

"I did? really? I didn't want you to know that I'd talked to her."

"Well, you let the cat out of the bag. The doctor out of the bag."

"I must have been suffering from sexheimer's when I confessed that to you. It's a very rare condition, temporary brain freeze brought on by mind-boggling sex. I've never had it before."

"You haven't, huh?"

"Never." He runs the soapy tip of his finger down her spine.

"I knew before you said it, anyway. She told me that she ran into you in Jumping Java and that she said you should call me."

"You know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think we owe Lanie a lot."

"She's always been pushing for us, Castle."

"Hey," he protests, splashing water at her. "I never needed a push."

"Maybe not. But I guess I did." She snakes her arm behind his head. "We should get out. Look at my fingers. I'm getting all pruny."

"Speaking of pruny, I'm starving. Let's go get dinner."

"Dinner? It's only three o'clock. No one's serving dinner yet."

He slides up the back of the tub, climbs out, grabs two towels, and offers her his hand. "C'mon. Dinnertime. We didn't have lunch and we never finished breakfast. And this time we really will get dressed. I know where we can get a sensational dinner."

"Right now?"

"Yup."

"Okay, but your clothes? You want to stop at your place and change?"

He'd shaken out his pants and shirts earlier and hung them across the back of the chair in her bedroom. "I hardly wore them, you know, before you tore them off me. Just a few wrinkles, and they don't matter to me if they don't matter to you."

She's standing next to her chest of drawers in a pale blue bra and tiny, lacy panties, and he's exercising more self-control than he's needed in years to keep his hands off her. "So I don't have to wear anything fancy?"

"Nope. Whatever you like. I like what you have on. Love it."

"I'm sure you do. But I'm going to add a little something." A little something being a blue-and-white-striped top, blue cropped pants, and sandals. "I'll be ready in a sec. Just have to put on my makeup."

"Don't," he says, stopping her by cupping her shoulder with his hand. "I love seeing you in your native state."

"But"–

"But what? You're beautiful the way you are. I promise that all the other diners and the entire wait staff will agree with me. And the owner, too." He tugs on her elbow. "Let's go."

Ten minutes later, when they're both buckled up in the front seat of his car and he's driving due east, she turns her head suspiciously towards him. "Where exactly is this fabled eating establishment, anyway, that we have to drive there?"

"You'll love it."

"Yeah, so you said. Where is it?"

"It's in the Hamptons. It's called my house, and we can stay there as long as we like. It's Saturday afternoon, so the traffic will be light and we can stop at the farm stand near me for whatever you like. I've got everything else you could want in the freezers."

"Freezers? Plural?"

"Yeah," he says, taking one hand off the wheel and slapping his belly. "The one that's half of the fridge and a separate one that I bought a month ago. I've been eating a lot this summer and I didn't want to keep making a lot of trips to restock. We'll be there in less than two hours."

When she wakes up the next morning, he's staring at her. "Morning," he says, and kisses her under her left eye. "I love that tiny mole."

"Morning."

"You have a week of vacation left, right?"

"Right."

"Stay."

"What?"

"Stay."

"Here?"

"Yes."

She thinks about the previous twelve hours: skinny dipping in the pool; a dinner of grilled chicken, fresh roasted corn, local tomatoes, and homemade peach ice cream; wading in the ocean in the moonlight, and making love in his bed with the windows wide open and the sea breeze blowing over them. That's all it takes: she rolls on top of him. "Yes. Yes. Yes."

That night they call Lanie. "Thanks for being Cupid," Kate says.

"Cupid? Last time I looked, honey, he was a chubby baby boy."

"Well, you're my personal Cupid, Lane, and you're definitely not a boy."

Castle takes the phone from her. "Don't listen to her. You're Aphrodite."

"That's more like it," the doctor says. When she arrives at the morgue the next morning there are two dozen peach roses in a vase on her desk, with a card attached. It's inscribed, "With love from your unsecret secret admirers."

For the next week, Castle checks in with Alexis every day, but that's it. He doesn't call anyone else. Kate uses her phone only once, to let the Captain know that she'll be returning to work on Monday. She follows that up by texting him a selfie–that does not include Castle–so that he can see how much healthier she looks than she had at the end of July.

They leave the property twice: to buy her a few clothes and a bathing suit ("totally unnecessary," he grumbles), and to get lobster rolls from a seafood shack near Montauk. That's it. They don't want or need to be anywhere else, or see anyone else.

"I wish I didn't have to go back," she says on Sunday evening, as they walk out of the house to his car.

"At least you're not going back alone."

"I know. Thanks for driving me to the city, Castle."

"I had to."

"No, you didn't."

"I had to because I'm going back to work tomorrow, too. With you. Told Montgomery I didn't have enough research after all." He's just closed the trunk and she looms up next to him.

"Cm'ere," she says roughly, grabbing him by the shirttail and kissing him so hard that he topples against the car. "Have you ever had sex in a Mercedes?"

"No."

"Good. Unlock the door."

It's so late by the time they get to Manhattan that he parks in front of her building and spends the night in her apartment rather than going home to Broome Street. He doesn't hear her alarm when it goes off, and she doesn't wake him. She showers quickly and dresses in the bathroom with the door closed. At 7:15 she leaves her key on her pillow next to him, silently blows him a kiss, and tiptoes out.

Espo and Ryan are genuinely happy to see her, if a little awkward in their greeting. They bring her up to speed on an open case that's stalled, and tell her that they're waiting on a warrant that may not come. Nothing has changed, except underneath. Underneath and inside, where everything matters, everything is different. For the first time in a very long time, she has something that she'd given up on finding. Happiness.

The three of them are standing idly at the murder board when the elevator door opens and Castle steps out, carrying four cups of coffee and a box of doughnuts. He hasn't had a doughnut since he walked through Beckett's door ten days ago, but he'll have one this morning. It's cop food, and he's an almost-cop again, in love with a cop who loves him. He's happier than he's ever been.

"Well, well," she says, with an expression of surprise that could fool anyone but him. "Look who the cat dragged in."

Castle raises an eyebrow, his counterpoint to her eye-roll. "Help yourselves, guys," he says, pointing to the coffee and doughnuts that he's set on her desk. "I think Beckett means, 'Look who the Kate dragged in.' I know she must have missed me, 'cause I see my chair's still here."

TBC

 **A/N** Thank you to everyone who's reading. To all of you who are facing the terrifying storms in the Southeast or the horrific fires out West, you have all my hopes that you are strong and safe.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

It's late October, and they've been a couple for two and a half months. They're eating better–she more, he less–and their life has developed a structure of sorts. He spends one or two nights a week at her place and she spends two or three at his.

"I don't know why we can't be together every night," he'd complained one rainy Sunday afternoon when they were half watching a movie on television but mostly making out.

"You have a daughter, Castle."

"I do, but she goes to bed at ten on school nights."

"So do I."

"Yes, but there's no need for you to go to bed alone. I can keep you warm. Although strictly speaking that's not possible, since you're so hot."

Alexis, Martha, Jim, and Lanie are the only people who know about them, and keeping their relationship secret is increasingly tricky. They've lost count of how many times they've almost been caught exchanging looks or worse, touches. At crime scenes, in the interrogation room, the bullpen, the break room, the stairwell, the car, a coffee shop, at least three alleys, game five of the American League Championship Series at Yankee Stadium when she'd caught a foul ball and was briefly visible on TV, a borscht place in Brighton, and sitting side-by-cozy-side on the molded plastic seats of the subway. The closest call was on The Tickler, a roller coaster at Coney Island. Castle insisted on tickling her throughout the ride ("The name practically demands that someone be tickled, Beckett. I'm the tickler, you're the tickle-ee"). She was still laughing when they stepped out of it, which was also when they spied Ryan and Jenny about fifteen feet away, buying cotton candy. A quick turn and their baseball caps were all that saved them from recognition.

Until today. If it had to happen–and it was inevitable–maybe it's best that it had been this way, quietly, but on the job, on the toughest kind of case. They'd been working on the 3XK killings for days, and everyone had been, still was, strung tight. Jerry Tyson had escaped, after knocking out Ryan and tying up him Castle in a grungy motel room. She and Esposito had raced there, fearing the worst, but when she'd kicked in the door she'd found the two men alive. Ryan had been taken to the hospital to be checked out, but she and Castle had sat in the dark outside, by the motel pool. He'd been beating himself up, taking the blame for the Triple Killer's escape. There was no way she could dissuade him; that would take time. She'd brought him a cup of coffee and quietly asked, "Why did he let you live?"

"To punish me. Make me pay for ruining his plan. Now he's gonna kill again all because I couldn't stop him. And I feel so"–

She'd put her hand on his knee then. "I know the feeling."

"I know you do," he'd said, and taken her hand in his.

He'd been shivering, so she'd pulled him against her and kissed him lightly on the lips. That was how they'd been caught red-handed–more like white-knuckled–by Esposito, who'd come over to tell them that Ryan was fine.

"Sorry," he'd said, and started to walk away.

She'd jumped up to go after him. "Espo." He'd been fast, but she'd been faster, and touched him on the shoulder. "Javi, wait. Please." And then she'd told him. Not at great length, but with enough details to ensure that he understood. He'd kept his eyes on her while she talked, occasionally glancing over her shoulder at Castle, who hadn't moved. "The only other person who knows, besides our immediate families, is Lanie."

"Chica never said a word to me."

"I knew she wouldn't."

He'd taken a long look at the ground before he'd returned to her. "You seem happy, Beckett, happier than I've ever seen you. I knew there must be a reason. It's good." He smiles and swipes his hand down his face; he's exhausted.

"You tell Jenny about Ryan?"

"Nope. Gonna call her now."

"Okay. Go home, Espo. There's nothing else to do here."

Her friend had craned his neck to glance at Castle one more time. "He okay?"

"No, but he will be. Got a bad case of the guilts."

"Not his fault."

"I know. And so will he, eventually. I hope."

She and Castle had driven to the loft, and she'd told him about Espo. "He won't say anything."

"Not even to Ryan?"

"Especially not to Ryan."

At home, they'd assured Martha that they were fine, and kept the details from Alexis. Then he'd asked her to stay over; she'd have done it even if he hadn't.

It's late, and they've both been sleeping fitfully. She knows he's awake, feels his body tense against hers, so she rolls on her side until she's pressed against his. "It's funny, isn't it?"

"Nothing funny about today," he says, his eyes aimed at the ceiling.

"Castle, look at me."

He turns his head to her, but doesn't say anything. Just stares.

She gives him a minute before she resumes. "It's funny about Alexis's secret admirer being Ashley. Her boyfriend."

"It's nice."

"It's funny because I'm your secret admirer, and you're mine, in a way. Right?"

He blinks slowly, shows a trace of a smile. "Yeah."

"There's something else that's a secret, but I want to tell you. I should have told you a while ago, but I couldn't."

She can see the alarm in his eyes, even in the dark. "What?"

"I love you. I'm in love with you. I've never said that to anyone, ever. In my life. I'm almost thirty-one years old, and this is the first time I've said it. I love you, Castle. I'm in love with you. I'll never say it to anyone again. Except to you. I'll say it a lot to you."

He hugs her so hard she can hardly breathe. "You know what, Kate? You know what you just did?"

"No."

"You just turned one of the worst days of my life into the best. I love you, Kate. I'm in love with you, and I'll never say it to anyone again. Except to you. I'll say it a lot to you."

He kisses her even harder than he'd hugged her. When he stops, he tugs at the hem of her tank top. "I'm gonna take this off you now."

"Good," she whispers, tugging on his tee shirt, "because I'm gonna take this off you."

"You ready?"

"God, yes."

"This is going to be even better than the first time."

"I know."

It was. It happened four weeks ago, but she's replayed that night in her mind over and over. It's not just the sex, though she'll never forget that; if she she thinks about it in public, she still has to squeeze her legs together. It's not even the far more important thing, which was that she'd finally been able to tell him what he'd deserved to hear long before then: that she loved him. Loves him. Was and is in love with him. No, something else about it has been weighing on her more and more: Why is this a secret? Why should it be? Why can't they be open? Why can't they walk hand in hand down a sidewalk without worrying that someone will notice? Why can't she put her head on his shoulder while they wait in line for coffee? Why can't they go out for a beer after a case and not have to sit on opposite sides of the table and not play footsy, either?

Last Friday she'd quietly and privately consulted an attorney—not her father, but an old associate of her mother's with whom she's kept in touch. She'd met her for coffee late this afternoon, on her way home from work, and gotten the glorious news. The NYPD has regulations about members of the department dating, but Castle is in no way an employee of the city. There can be absolutely no sanctions if they're seeing each other, and there is nothing to prevent them from being aboveboard about their relationship.

"Thank you, Rebecca," she'd said to her mother's friend. "This means everything to me. Everything." She'd opened her bag and taken out her checkbook and a pen. "I don't want to wait for a bill. I want to do this right now. What do I owe you? I know you're a partner in the firm, probably bill at least a thousand an hour. Whatever it is, it's worth every penny."

"Put that away, Kate," Rebecca had said sternly, tapping her on the back of the wrist. "There's no way on God's earth that I'm taking money from you."

"You have to let me pay you. I asked you for your help. Please."

"No. You want to know what's worth every penny to me? Seeing you this happy. Your mother–can you imagine what she'd have said?" She'd pointed straight up with her spoon. "And can't you hear her clapping her hands? That you and her favorite writer are in love?"

That had made her smile, almost made her clap her hands, too. "Will you at least let me pay for your coffee?"

"Okay. And one more thing."

"What?"

"Send me an invitation to your wedding."

Before a flustered Kate had been able to muster a word, Rebecca had stood up, kissed her on her blushing cheek, and left. At the door she'd turned back, waved, and said, "Happy Thanksgiving."

"You, too. Thank you."

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and they're having it in the Hamptons; she'd cashed in a vacation day to do it and Castle had given a pair of seats to the Giants game to Esposito, who's covering for her. ("My ticket broker would probably be on the top of my phone list if you weren't already in the number-one spot," he'd told her.) The two of them, plus Martha and Alexis, had driven out this evening; her father's coming on the train in the morning.

She and Castle are on the way up to bed when she says, "Oh, no. I forgot the popcorn."

"Popcorn? Now?"

"Yes," she says over her shoulder as she runs down the stairs.

Of course he follows her. "Beckett? You know I'm a great believer in midnight snacks, but we're having a huge meal tomorrow and as you _also_ know, my waistline is almost back to normal and I don't want to be tempted by your buttery delights."

"You talking about me or the popcorn?"

"The popcorn. Your buttery delights have no calories, and even if they did they're a temptation I could never resist."

"Good answer. Except this popcorn has no butter," she says, holding up a large plastic bag. "I made it at the precinct yesterday."

"You're going to eat two-day-old popcorn? No. I'll make you a nice batch. It'll be ready in two minutes."

"It's for the birds, Castle."

"No kidding. I wouldn't eat two-day old popcorn if I were starving in the desert." He puts a bag in the microwave, and presses start.

"I mean for the birds. As in our feathered friends. When I was growing up we always went to the cabin for Thanksgiving, and my cousin Darcie and I made an enormous chain of popcorn and cranberries for the birds. We hung it on the evergreen tree by the back door. You can't use fresh popcorn because it breaks too easily when you're threading it. I have to do it tonight because we'll be too busy cooking tomorrow to do it. You want to join me?"

"I always want to join you, Kate," he says, giving her his best leer. "Is this why you asked me to get an extra bag of cranberries?"

"Yup. And here"–she gets a little packet from her purse–"are the big needles and the heavy-duty thread."

Fifteen minutes later they've made considerable headway, but she can tell that he's getting bored.

"You know, Castle, when Darcie and I did this in the kitchen, my mom said that for every five berries and popped kernels that we put on the string we had to say something that we were thankful for. It always started out fine but it went downhill fast."

"Like what?" he asks, threading a berry.

"Like, 'I'm thankful for not having any homework this week'."

"That's not bad."

"Or, 'I'm thankful that Jason Miller is in a different classroom this year because he totally smells'. In my defense, I was ten."

"You totally smell, too, Kate Beckett, but you totally smell fantastic."

"Mmm. I have something extra special to be thankful for this year. Want to know what it is?"

He puts the needle on the counter. "Was kind of hoping you'd say it was me."

"It is. But this is something else." She scoots closer to him and buries her face in his hair. "May I say that you totally smell fantastic too, Rick Castle."

"That's it? That I smell good?"

"Nope. Even better. I hired a lawyer. Well, tried to hire her, did hire her, but she wouldn't let me pay her."

"Whoa, definitely something to be thankful for. Not to mention stunned and amazed." He's a little too hearty; she can feel the edge of concern underneath.

"Friend of my mom's from her firm. Long story short, I met with her today and you and I don't have to hide our relationship anymore. You are in no way an employee of the NYPD. She took apart the regs and put them back together. We can tell everyone."

He lifts her off the stool, kisses her, and swings her around the room. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"Does this mean I get to ravish you at the precinct?"

"Not quite," she says and kisses him in return. "C'mon. Let's finish."

"I wish I'd known about this when Alexis was little. She'd have loved it."

"It's okay," she says, running a hand down his arm. "We can do it when we have ki"—. She stops short and abruptly stands up. "All done. We can hang it up in the morning."

His heart is singing, and he's dying to finish her sentence: "We can do it when we have kids." He knows better, and it's enough that he knows that she's thinking it, even if she's not ready to say it out loud. He gets up, too, and puts the leftover cranberries in the fridge. "Hey," he asks, as she heads for the door. "What am I going to do with this nice fresh bowl of popcorn that I just made?"

"That? Oh, bring it to bed. I've got all kinds of ideas for that." She's walking backwards, crooking her finger.

"You do?"

"Definitely. Ravishing ideas."

TBC

 **A/N** I hope that all of you in the areas affected by hurricanes or wildfires are safe. One chapter to go.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** Eight-month time jump, to mid-July 2011.

Six weeks into her recovery, she still often slips into some kind of mental twilight. Maybe it's the pain meds; maybe it's the pain itself–not just the post-surgical variety but the emotional, which is harder to deal with because it has no time limit. The physical pain is diminishing and should disappear completely before the end of the year; the other, who knows? Roy Montgomery is dead. Her role model, her boss, her friend–and in her early days on the force her father figure, when her own father was still lost to alcohol. Moments before her Captain died she told him that she forgave him, and she did. She had. But his betrayal is a deep wound, and it still bleeds when she's not expecting it. And there's one more thing: fear. Someone shot her at Roy Montgomery's funeral, and he's still out there.

She can't deal with anything when the gray half-light descends, can't speak or reason, read or write. She just exists, suspended in something that shuts down all her senses. Except one: touch. She craves it, and responds to it, and that is when Castle is invaluable. He always knows exactly what she needs, and she has no idea how, since she gives him no physical clues. He's swaddled her bare feet in a cashmere throw when she was incapable of asking for it; gently kneaded her shoulders when she didn't know they were bunched up; brushed her hair; carried her into the bathtub and let her float in a warm, soapy sea; massaged cream into her hands; curled up next to her on the sofa, barely making contact.

They'd come to the Hamptons house as soon as she'd been released from the hospital, and are staying until September first, when they'll go back to the city and to the precinct. This morning they're having breakfast in the warm sun on the brick terrace off the kitchen. "How do you know?" she asks him, squeezing his knee.

He looks up from the newspaper. "Hmm? Know what?"

"How do you know what to do for me when I go into one of my fadeouts?"

"How do I know?" He sounds shocked, and _The Times_ slips to the ground. "Kate, I know _you_. That's how. Not just because we've been together for a year, but before. I watched you all the time, which I know drove you crazy, but I sorted out so many things about you. I was so in love with you. I am so in love with you that I still watch you, even when you don't notice."

"I always notice."

"Nope."

"I do. Tell me one time when I haven't."

"From the beginning, or recently?"

"It doesn't count if it was while I was sleeping or unconscious or in a fadeout. Or having sexheimer's."

She's turned this from something serious to serious with a comic side, and he's thrilled. It's the first time she's done it since before Montgomery's death. He won't comment on it, because even now it might make her uncomfortable, but he'll remember this moment. "Bikini panties," he says.

"What about them?"

"Which ones did you wear yesterday?"

Her answer is confident and immediate. "Green. The lime green ones."

"Nope. The ones with pink rosebuds. And I can prove it because I bet they're in the top of the laundry hamper."

That gets him a glare. Not a full-blown one, but nonetheless a glare. "I should also have said that underwear doesn't count, you perv. You always know what underwear I have on."

"Fair enough, though I'd counter that I'm not a perv, just a man who's completely smitten with you. Okay. Here's another thing. You're reading _Pride and Prejudice_ now, right?"

"Geez, you noticed that? Not impressed."

"That's not my point. My point is, what did you use for a bookmark when you stopped reading yesterday afternoon so that you could take a nap?"

She freely admits to having a mile-wide competitive streak, and she really, really wants to win this argument. Not an argument. Challenge, that's it. She wants to win this challenge. On the other hand, she's so touched that he notices this much about her that she won't mind losing. She's pretty sure that she's on the verge of ceding this round.

"Lemme think." She scrunches up her nose and closes her eyes for a moment. "It was the envelope from the get-well card that Karpowski sent. To remind myself to email her a thank you."

"Not even close," he crows. "It was the fortune from a cookie from the Chinese food we had last Monday. I don't know what it says, because I'm not a snoop"–

"Not a snoop? Ha!"

"No, really, you know that I've reformed in that area, at least when it comes to you."

It's true. He has. "Okay. Anyway, go on."

"When I was putting the plates in the dishwasher I saw you pick up the fortune, smooth out the paper, and tuck it in your pocket. It was adorable. I wondered what it said. At some point you must have put it your nightstand, because yesterday I saw you pull open the drawer, get the fortune, and put it in your book."

"Oh, my God, you're right."

Without thinking, he claps his hands. "Shouldn't I get a prize? A reward? How about letting me see the fortune?"

"It's dumb," she says, not quite soon enough to hide her embarrassment.

"Can't be dumb if you saved it."

"You win. I'll go get it."

"No, you stay here and I'll go get it."

"Castle." That glare again, a little sterner this time.

He pushes himself up from his chaise, and when he reaches the door turns to say, "I won't peek. I promise." When he comes bounding back he hands her _Pride and Prejudice_. "You can read it to me. The fortune, that is, not the whole book."

She snatches it away, makes a pretense of checking the fortune, and says blandly, "You will meet a handsome stranger."

"See? How hard was that? You're right, though. It's dumb. Cookies used to have really great fortunes." If she were operating at full strength, if her reflexes weren't still slower than they normally are, he'd never have been able to grab the tiny slip of paper, but he does. "Let me see. Huh, I thought you might have been kidding: 'You will meet a handsome stranger.' But there appears to be something on the back." He waves it between his thumb and forefinger. "Is it lucky numbers? Should we be buying a lottery ticket?"

He flips it over, and his heart follows. She had written, "I already did," and surrounded it with a series of tiny xoxoxoxoxos.

He's holding himself together only through determination. "Not dumb at all," he says, returning the fortune to her before looking at his watch. "Hey, it's almost ten. Your PT guy will be here in a minute. I'll just, uh, make myself scarce. Go write." He's able—only because he runs—to get through the house, up the stairs, and into his office before he bursts into tears against the door. The fortune cookie. A stupid fortune cookie has brought him to his knees. Not the cookie, but the fortune. Not the fortune, but what she wrote on it. Not just what she wrote on it, but that she kept it. He's the handsome stranger. xoxox

This summer has been the worst and the best of his life. The worst is obvious: Montgomery's murder and the shooting at his funeral; the near-death of Kate; the horror of watching her in agony, and being able to do so little about it. Money helps, because he can cover anything that her NYPD health plan doesn't. Love helps, too. Her knowing and accepting that he loves her without qualification helps her and it helps him. That's what's ultimately made this summer the best, even with all the anguish and the darkness: their astonishing love for each other.

He'd expected her to fight him when he'd suggested spending the entire summer here, but she hadn't. He'd presented his argument, very softly, and she'd said yes. That had been it. He'd intended to wait until they were back in the city and fully immersed at the precinct before he made his next suggestion—request, plea, whatever. He wants her to move into the loft with him, for every possible reason, but he doesn't want to wait. He wants to ask her now. He doesn't want her to write on the fortune from a cookie and feel that she has to hide it from him.

For an hour—the length of Kate's physical therapy session—he sits on the floor with his back against the door. He asks himself questions, and answers them. He brings up "what ifs?" and parries with "why nots?" It's time to get up—he's stiff enough that he could use a PT session himself—and check on Kate, who's always sore and exhausted after her workout. Through his window he sees Saul, the therapist, getting into his car, and he goes straight to the kitchen to make Kate a smoothie. She'll drink half of it, at most, but it's enough. By the time he's fixed it she's out of the shower and lying down.

"How did it go?"

"The man is trying to kill me, but I finally feel as if I might be getting strong enough to fend him off." She points to the glass that he's carrying. "That for me?"

"Yup. Here you go. Sit up a little."

She takes a few sips, puts the drink down, and licks her lips. "Thank you. Have I told you that I love you?"

"Not today."

"I love you."

"I love you, too." Please move in, please move in, please move in.

" 'm going to sleep now."

"Okay. Later."

As soon as she drifts off he phones in two orders, one to the fishmonger in town, the other to the florist, and tells them both that he'll be there in half an hour. He quickly shaves and dresses, and sets the table in her favorite room in the house, a tiny study that's tucked away in a corner. Almost no one realizes it's there, which is one of the reasons she loves it. The trip into town and back takes less than twenty minutes and he has time to get everything set up in the study before she wakes.

He's in the kitchen when he hears the light slap of her feet on the bare floor.

"Hey, Castle."

"Hey. Did you sleep well? Are you hungry?"

"Yes and yes. You making lunch?"

"No."

She looks both taken aback and disappointed. "Oh. Uh, okay."

"Not making it because I went and got it at Independent Claws."

"Lobster rolls? Did you get lobster rolls?"

"I did."

"Shall we eat them by the pool?"

"Nope, I have another idea. Come with me." He takes her hand and leads her to the other end of the ground floor. He'd shut the door to the study so that she'd be surprised, and he watches her from the corner of his eye as he turns the knob.

"Oh." She smiles at him with such tenderness that he's mush. "Oh, Castle. Anemones."

He'd put the vase of anemones—most of them purple, but with a few red and blue for contrast, just like the bouquet he'd bought her last year—in the middle of the table. A silver bucket filled with ice and a bottle occupies one corner, and the lobster rolls are on plates at their places. "This time I didn't have to look to see if there was a light was on," he says. "I knew that you were home." He'd meant to say here, not home. Did she notice?

"What's the occasion? It's not the anniversary of our getting together. That was eleven months ago, not a year yet."

"I'm coming to that. Here, sit down so I can pour the champagne."

Her mouth droops. "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't have that. Not with the meds."

"Yeah, well, it's not actual champagne. Sparkling cider. Booze-free bubbles until we can have the real stuff." He takes the chair opposite and touches his champagne flute to hers. "Santé."

"Santé," she says.

"Eat your lobster. You need to keep your strength up."

"Will do, Doctor Castle." She takes a healthy bite, chews, swallows, and looks rhapsodic. "This is almost as good as an orgasm."

"You haven't had sex in six weeks, Kate. Your mind is fuzzy."

"Yeah, well, you'd better not have had sex in six weeks, either."

"Good point."

She's halfway through her lobster roll before she asks him. "So. The anemones. Are you excited about something in the future?"

"Yes. Or I hope I am."

"You hope you're excited?"

"It was your fortune, from the fortune cookie."

"You're excited about that?"

"No. It was the catalyst. It made me not want to wait for the future. I was going to ask you something in September, once we were back in the city, settled in again at work, but I changed my mind."

"Changed your mind about asking, or about asking me then?"

"Both."

"I don't think it's the fault of the alcohol-free cider, but I'm having a little trouble following you."

"You know I love John Donne's poetry."

"Yes, I do, and it's a well-kept secret. But now I'm having big trouble following you."

He reaches across the table and laces his fingers through hers. "This is what I wish I'd written. For you. But I can't improve on John Donne, so here goes."

Quietly, evenly, but very emotionally, he begins to recite Donne, never taking his eyes off hers.

 _I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I  
Did, till we loved? _

She's so stunned that she misses a few lines before she hears him again.

 _If ever any beauty I did see,  
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.  
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,  
Which watch not one another out of fear;  
For love, all love of other sights controls,  
And makes one little room an everywhere._

She's overwhelmed now, and misses a few more lines, until he reaches this:

 _My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,  
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;  
Where can we find two better hemispheres,  
Without sharp north, without declining west?_

 _Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;  
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I  
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die._

"I was going to ask you to move in with me, Kate, but I changed my mind. I don't want you to move in with me."

"You don't?"

He can't read her face, but her eyes are enormous, and tears are about to spill from them.

"I want more than that. I want you to marry me. Will you? Will you marry me, Kate?"

And now the tears do spill, but she's smiling. "Yes. Yes, I will marry you. Yes."

He kisses the palm of her hand, then releases it, and gets up. He comes around the table, kneels in front of her, takes a ring out of his pocket and slips it on her finger. And then he kisses her as hard as he can without knocking her out of her chair.

"It's beautiful," she says afterwards, running the tip of her finger over the diamond and the two emeralds on either side of it. "It's a perfect fit. How?"–

"I checked the size of your mother's ring. Figured it might be right."

"But when did you get it?"

"In October. After Jerry Tyson. I knew I couldn't live another day without you, but I was afraid to ask you then. So I put it in my desk, and I brought it out here just for safekeeping."

This time she kisses him, so hard that he almost topples over.

"Castle?"

"Mmhmm?"

She turns her head, first to the left, then to the right, and then back at him. "This little room is an everywhere, isn't it? It's our everywhere."

"It is."

 **A/N** There will be a short Epilogue in a few days. In the meantime, happy weekend, everyone.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** Five-month time jump to mid-December 2011. (Epilogue)

She's in the coffee shop across the street from her apartment, waiting for Castle to arrive. He's meeting her in front of her building in fifteen minutes. Even though it's only a little after nine on a Sunday morning, the sidewalks are filling up with shoppers taking advantage of lots of stores' early-opening holiday hours. She's snagged a window seat and is looking out at her living-room window, three flights up, thinking about their wedding. She hadn't wanted a long engagement or a big ceremony, so they'd gotten married on the second weekend in October on the lawn in the Hamptons, with only their families and a few friends there. They'd had lobster rolls and sparkling cider–"our proposal lunch," Castle called it—cake and champagne. By eleven, everyone had gone, leaving them alone in the house.

At 1:30 in the morning he'd gotten out of bed.

"Get back over here," she'd said. "I'm not through with you yet."

He'd turned around, put one knee on the mattress, and pressed his nose against hers. "I'm kind of counting on your never being through with me."

"Where were you going?"

"Wait here and you'll find out."

"I'm counting, Castle," she'd said, watching his gorgeous ass disappear through the door. She really had been counting, and at 178 he was back, carrying a tray, though it had been too dark for her to see what was on it. "What's that?"

"Pumpkin pie. I sneaked out to get it yesterday morning when you were getting dressed."

"Pumpkin pie?"

"And whipped cream. Our favorite dessert," he'd explained, passing her a plate. "We want to start married life right."

They had, too, especially with the whipped cream. She's chuckling about it now, two months later.

"Would you like a refill?"

"What?" She'd completely forgotten where she is, and the waitress is standing next to her, holding the coffee pot.

"I thought you might like a refill. Looks like you were enjoying it."

"You can't imagine how much. Thank you." Just before the waitress begins to pour, she says, "But, no. I'd like a cup of chocolate for my husband, please, though. To go. I'm meeting him across the street in a couple of minutes."

She hopes the waitress attributes her bright red cheeks to the weather, since it's only eighteen degrees and snow is in the forecast. She looks up at her building again. She'd hung on to her place too long, and she knows why: it represented her independence. It had taken her four months, from the time that Castle had proposed until the middle of November, to make her decision to let it go. It had taken her that long to understand that her independence hadn't evaporated with "I do." Castle, the man who in the years before they'd gotten together had constantly crowded her and invaded her privacy, now gives her space, both literal and figurative. The literal is the room that had been Martha's. His mother had moved to an apartment five blocks away, and he'd carried Kate's computer up to the room, as well as her favorite armchair. "This is yours," he'd said. "Whenever you need to be by yourself."

She'd broken the lease, to her landlord's delight, because he could raise the rent for the next tenant. She'd paid through the month of December, but promised to be out by the twelfth–tomorrow–so he'd have plenty of time to repaint and put it on the market before the new year. She hadn't told Castle; it was going to be an early Christmas present. She'd stolen the odd hour here and there to clear it out, and when he'd had to go to a writer's conference the weekend after Thanksgiving she'd spent virtually every minute there. Most of the things that she'd wanted to hold onto–clothes, books, photographs, a few pillows, a lamp–had already gone to the loft, piecemeal. In the last couple of weeks she'd boxed up bedding and towels for the battered women's shelter; given almost all of her kitchen things and furniture to a non-profit that helps formerly homeless families set up places of their own, and cleaned the place thoroughly.

On Friday she'd told Castle that there were a couple of things that she wanted to pick up from her apartment, and they'd need the SUV. This morning she'd said that she had to go on a (nonexistent) errand and arranged to meet outside. And here he comes now, pulling up to the curb. He is so unerringly punctual that she wonders if a DNA test would reveal that he's at least half Swiss. She goes to the counter for the hot chocolate, pays her bill, and runs across the street.

"Hey," she says, grabbing his sleeve before kissing his cheek, and offering him the brown paper bag. "Brought you something."

"Thanks," he says, extracting the hot chocolate. "Want to drink it upstairs?"

"That's the idea. And on that note, I had her put extra whipped dream in there. In case that gives you any other ideas."

He wiggles his eyebrows and salutes her with the cup.

On the ride up in the tiny elevator she has an attack of nerves. What will he think of all this, that she hadn't told him? Her hand is trembling, and it takes a couple of tries before she gets the key in the lock.

"You okay? Are you cold?"

"Maybe a little." She flips the switch that's just inside the door and stands aside so that he can come in.

He gasps. "Oh, my God, Beckett. You've been robbed."

"Not unless the thieves also ran the vacuum and washed the windows."

"But. But. It's empty? Does this? Is, uh? Did you?"

"Gave it up," she says, unbuttoning her coat, unwrapping her scarf, and dropping them on the sofa. He's gaping, and about to spill his hot chocolate, so she grabs his wrist and takes the cup from his hand. "Want to take off your parka?"

"Where is everything?"

He's standing there, unmoving, so she unzips his jacket and pulls it off him.

"I took a few things to the loft and gave everything else to charity. Except the sofa and the little desk in my bedroom. I paid the super an obscene amount of money to drive the sofa over to Broome Street tomorrow, and you and I will take the desk home today."

Still standing, but now looking around the newly reverberant space, he says, "But it's your apartment."

"Was my apartment."

"You gave it up?"

"I don't need it anymore, Castle. I live with you. In the loft. Are you surprised?"

"Yeah, I am." His face softens and he smiles so that he looks almost seraphic.

"You know," she says, touching her hand to his cheek, "you look like a little boy on Christmas morning. And I did kind of mean this as a Christmas present. Two weeks early, but I told the landlord I'd be out by the twelfth, so this is it. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," he says, pulling tight against his chest. "Best present ever."

"Dunno about that," she mumbles into his sweater.

"When did you do all this?"

"Let's sit down, and I'll tell you. Drink your hot chocolate before it gets cold."

They end up, as they so often do on the sofa together, with her feet in his lap, and she fills him in.

"This is really it, then?" he asks when she finishes. "Only the sofa and the desk? How come you want the sofa?"

"I like it, and there's more than enough room for it in Martha's, I mean my, study. Besides," she pokes him with her toe, "I didn't want to part with it. This sofa has seen a lot of action over the past fifteen months."

"Just the thing for my mother's room, then. It'll feel right at home."

"Castle!" She pokes him again.

"You about ready to leave? One last look around?"

"No, I'm done."

"Then let's get the desk." He stands, puts his empty cup on the bare floor, and takes her hand. When they get to the bedroom he says, "You know, it's pretty small. I think I can manage it by myself, but let's take the drawer out. Makes it lighter and easier to carry, if you don't mind taking that?"

"Nope."

He has to jiggles it a little to get it open, and he hears something sliding around. "There's something in here," he says as he pulls the drawer free. It's the pink WHILE YOU WERE OUT pad, a little bit dusty but otherwise just as it looked in the photo that Lanie had shown him last year. He never thought that he'd see it, let alone hold it; Lanie hadn't even let him have a copy of the photo.

She'd long ago told Castle that she'd been hospitalized, but she'd never told him about the message. She'd stuffed it in the back of the drawer when she'd come home, and pushed it out of her mind. And right after that, Castle had shown up with the flowers, and–

He can hardly pretend that he hasn't seen what's on the pad, so he looks at it again. "What's this?" What a stupid question, but he can't take it back.

"It's a WHILE YOU WERE OUT message. You know, like people used before voicemail." What a stupid answer, but she can't take it back.

"This is your writing. And the date. August sixth, two thousand ten. Wasn't that the day you"–

Tell it straight. No more secrets. "Collapsed and was admitted to the hospital? Yes, I wrote that right before."

"You wrote it to me. To Rick Castle. I LOVE YOU." He looks so happy and sad and wonderful and in love.

"I did, Castle. I'm sorry that it took me so long to say it. We were both miserable, weren't we? Me here, never leaving my apartment, and you out in the Hamptons. That's when I knew, you know. I fell in love with you while you were out."

He kisses her with more tenderness than she has ever known, and then he says, "Let's get this downstairs and go home. Our twenty-four/seven home." He smiles again. "Thank you. For everything. All of it."

"You're welcome."

They get their coats from the sofa, the only thing left in the place that she used to call home, and put them on. "You're sure about this?"

"I'm sure."

"And you're sure you want to take this sofa?"

"Yes. Why? Don't you like it?"

"Of course I do. Just thought you might want something new up there."

"You should really love it, you know," she says, wrapping herself around him and putting her hands in his back pockets.

"I should?"

"You know I said that my giving up the apartment was meant to be my Christmas present to you, and then you said it was the best present ever?"

"Yeah."

"And then I said I didn't know about that?"

"Yeah."

"Do you remember when we came over here after the Hallowe'en party to escape?"

He laughs. "Definitely."

"So you remember what we did on the sofa?" She leans back so that she can look up at him.

"Oh, we did everything on the sofa that night. Including, oh, that was the first time you"–

"We did something else, too, though I didn't know it at the time. In fact, I didn't find out until yesterday."

He looks puzzled. "What?"

"We made a baby. Merry Christmas, Castle."

 **A/N** That's a wrap. Thank you again for all your enthusiasm. It's what every writer needs.


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